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This paper analyses how research on antibiotic resistance has been a driving force in the development of new antibiotics. Drug resistance, while being a problem for physicians and patients, offers attractive perspectives for those who research and develop new medicines. It imposes limits on the usability of older medicines and simultaneously modifies pathologies in a way that opens markets for new treatments. Studying resistance can thus be an important part of developing and marketing antibiotics. The chosen example is that of the German pharmaceutical company Bayer. Before World War Two, Bayer had pioneered the development of anti-infective chemotherapy, sulpha drugs in particular, but had missed the boat when it came to fungal antibiotics. Exacerbated by the effects of war, Bayer's world market presence, which had been considerable prior to the war, had plummeted. In this critical situation, the company opted for a development strategy that tried to capitalise on the problems created by the use of first-generation antibiotics. Part and parcel of this strategy was monitoring what can be called the structural change of infectious disease. In practice, this meant to focus on pathologies resulting from resistance and hospital infections. In addition, Bayer also focused on lifestyle pathologies such as athlete's foot. This paper will follow drug development and marketing at Bayer from 1945 to about 1980. In this period, Bayer managed to regain some of its previous standing in markets but could not escape from the overall crisis of anti-infective drug development from the 1970s on.

As foundations and governments mobilize to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR), several experiments in academic-industrial collaboration have emerged. Here, I examine two historical precedents, the Penicillin Project and the Malaria Project of the Second World War, and two contemporary examples, the Tuberculosis Drug Accelerator programme and the Tres Cantos Open Lab. These and related experiments suggest that different strategies can be effective in managing academic-industrial collaborations, and that such joint projects can prosper in both multisite and single-site forms, depending on the specific challenges and goals of each project. The success of these strategies and the crisis of AMR warrant additional investment in similar projects.

The development of chemical compounds for the treatment of infectious diseases may be divided into three phases: a) the discovery in the 1600s in South America of alkaloid extracts from the bark of the cinchona tree and from the dried root of the ipecacuanha bush, which proved effective against, respectively, malaria (quinine) and amoebic dysentery (emetine); b) the development of synthetic drugs, which mostly took place in Germany, starting with Paul Ehrlich's (1854-1915) discovery of salvarsan (1909), and crowned with Gerhard Domagk's (1895-1964) discovery of the sulfonamides (1930s); and c) the discovery of antibiotics. The prime example of the latter is the development of penicillin in the late 1920s following a discovery by a solitary research scientist who never worked in a team and never as part of a research programme. It took another ten years or so before drug-quality penicillin was produced, with research now dependent on being conducted in large collaborative teams, frequently between universities and wealthy industrial companies. The search for new antibiotics began in earnest in the latter half of the 1940s and was mostly based on soil microorganisms. Many new antibiotics were discovered in this period, which may be termed «the golden age of antibiotics». Over the past three decades, the development of new antibiotics has largely stalled, while antibiotic resistance has increased. This situation may require new strategies for the treatment of infectious diseases.