Why don’t governments more directly sponsor novel antibiotics, as they do vaccines?

The stories we write today about the threats of antibiotic-resistant bacteria read very much like the ones we wrote 15 years ago. Bacteria evolve more threatening forms, drug companies evolve toward more profitable markets, and we still depend on the invisible hand of the market to fix everything as it does so smoothly in the rest of healthcare. But there’s another option: Bringing national governments and international agencies more directly into full supervision and sponsorships of the drugs, as often is done extremely effectively with vaccines. Why not? Check out this early proposal for “a joint, internationally-funded antimicrobial development institute that would fund permanent staff to take on roles previously assigned to pharmaceutical companies.”