• David M Brogan and Elias Mossialos.
• Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom. E.A.Mossialos@lse.ac.uk.
• Globalization Health. 2013 Jan 1;9:58.

BackgroundAntimicrobial resistance is a growing threat resulting from the convergence of biological, economic and political pressures. Investment in research and development of new antimicrobials has suffered secondary to these pressures, leading to an emerging crisis in antibiotic resistance.MethodsCurrent policies to stimulate antibiotic development have proven inadequate to overcome market failures. Therefore innovative ideas utilizing market forces are necessary to stimulate new investment efforts. Employing the benefits of both the previously described Advanced Market Commitment and a refined Call Options for Vaccines model, we describe herein a novel incentive mechanism, the Options Market for Antibiotics.ResultsThis model applies the benefits of a financial call option to the investment in and purchase of new antibiotics. The goal of this new model is to provide an effective mechanism for early investment and risk sharing while maintaining a credible purchase commitment and incentives for companies to ultimately bring new antibiotics to market.ConclusionsWe believe that the Options Market for Antibiotics (OMA) may help to overcome some of the traditional market failures associated with the development of new antibiotics. Additional work must be done to develop a more robust mathematical model to pave the way for practical implementation.

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