]The former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, Scott Gottlieb, tells Reuters that in his new role as a venture capitalist, he is interested in supporting companies examining new antibiotics.
"I'm very interested in finding opportunities in the anti-infective space, particularly around multi-drug resistant organisms," Gottlieb tells Reuters. "Anti-infectives have been unloved for a very long time. There's a huge clinical need."
As FDA commissioner — a post he held from May 2017 until April 2019 — Gottlieb championed the need for new antibiotics, Reuters says, and now that he is back at the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, he plans to in part focus on this space.
Reuters calls this a "contrarian bet" as many large drugmakers are no longer researching new antibiotics, noting that Novartis, Sanofi, and AstraZeneca have left the space. It adds that smaller firms have had problems securing financing.