The Health Impact Fund was mentioned in a New York Times op-ed as having the potential to limit the growth of drug resistance. Carl F. Nathan, the chairman of the department of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College and author of the opinion piece, writes that growing drug resistance and a dwindling supply of antibiotics pose a grave threat to the practice of medicine. According to Nathan, innovation in antibiotics is lagging because they much less profitable for pharmaceutical companies than are medicines to treat widespread chronic diseases. However, with the creation of an intergovernmental fund for drug innovation, like the Health Impact Fund, companies could make new antibiotics widely available at a low price and be rewarded on the basis of their health impact, rather than relying on patent protection and large markups to make a profit. Creating incentives for developing new antibiotics and making widely accessible is essential to managing bacterial disease, according to Nathan.
The entire op-ed is available here.