&gt; This is why all the major pharmaceutical companies have shut down their antibiotic divisions.<p>Also, Radiolab recently noted[0] that antibiotic resistance can often be found in the wild within just a few years after a drug&#x27;s discovery.<p>Antibiotic resistance was found in the wild to penicillin before it was even widely used by the public.<p>Others had a few years (or sometimes months):
Streptomycin ~5 years
Linezolid ~2 years
Clindamycin ~1 year
Piperacillin ~1 year
Meticillin 11 months<p>Why burn through 10 years of development for 1 year of sales? It doesn&#x27;t even take very wide use before resistance gets around...<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.radiolab.org&#x2F;story&#x2F;best-medicine&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.radiolab.org&#x2F;story&#x2F;best-medicine&#x2F;</a>