NEW YORK TIMES | The World Health Organization has issued a fresh warning about the global threat of drug resistant infections. In two new reports — one that analyzed products being tested on patients and another that looked at therapies in the early stages of development — the WHO cited grim economic realities that have been strangling the few remaining companies working on the development of antimicrobial therapies. The report on drugs in the later stages of development said only eight new antibiotics have been approved since 2017, and most are derivatives of existing drugs. The majority of them do not treat pathogens on the WHO’s list of urgent threats. Of the 50 new antibiotics being tested in clinical trials, only two are active against the most worrisome class of bugs, called gram negative bacteria, that can prove deadly for newborns, cancer patients and those undergoing elective procedures like hip and knee replacements. Without government intervention, the United Nations estimates that resistant infections could kill 10 million people annually by 2050 and prompt an economic slowdown to rival the global financial crisis of 2008.