STAT NEWS | In this commentary, Pew Charitable Trust’s Allan Coukell warns that the rise of antibiotic resistance is inevitable as pathogens evolve to resist every existing antibiotic, and that if we allow the pipeline to dwindle, the price won’t be just in dollars, it will also be in lives lost. He urges the US congress to move swiftly to enact a package of economic incentives ‘to reinvigorate the stagnant pipeline of antibiotics. He also urges the US government to move forward with the Developing an Innovative Strategy for Antimicrobial Resistant Microorganisms (DISARM) Act of 2019, which could help ease the pressures working against new antibiotics in the US healthcare system. No single policy change will stem the exodus of investment from research on new antibiotics. But incentives such as these, combined with existing federal and public-private programs to defray research and development costs, are essential to turning the tide.