INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES | The spread of superbugs could change modern medicine as we know it, as common infections and injuries once again become death sentences. Antimicrobials are essential to modern medicine. If antibiotics lose their efficacy, routine surgeries like hip replacements and treatments like chemo or radiation therapy will become too risky. Already, in India, more leukemia patients perish from bloodstream infections than from the cancer itself. Drug-resistant bacteria kill 700,000 people each year and unless scientists develop new treatments, drug-resistant microbes will kill many more every year. World leaders respond to this threat — before it’s too late. In this article, Kevin Outterson and John Rex call on the US, as a global leader in drug development, to take action. A first step would be to pass the Developing an Innovative Strategy for Antimicrobial Resistant Microorganisms (DISARM) Act. They also call for the establishment of a system that would reward researchers who successfully develop new antibiotics. The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, a UK-commissioned global AMR analysis, recommends a market entry award of at least $1 billion for any company that brings a novel antimicrobial to market.