Antibiotics in the laboratories are usually very successful but when scientists take them to the human body, they do not behave the same way and most of them fail. Consequently, to create a new antibiotic a lot of money and time is needed.

Companies invest huge amounts of money to bring a new drug to market but cannot recover their costs or make a profit. New antibiotics are seen as 'drugs of last resort' against dangerous bacteria. So, to limit the development of antibiotic resistance, they need to be used sparingly – and not sold in large volumes.

There is little interest from the pharmaceutical industry in the development of new antibiotics because the returns are small. Antibiotics are medicines that the patient heals with and their use is always temporary. This means that the development of new antibiotics is less economically profitable, compared, for example, with chronic patients, that the use of the drug is longer. In addition, the antibiotic is a type of medication that should only be used in necessary cases.