Professor Lewis said that the failure to detect any signs of resistance to teixobactin establishes a new paradigm in the development of antibiotics, which had assumed resistance will eventually occur.

“Bacteria develop resistance by mutations in their proteins. The targets of teixobactin are not proteins, they are polymer precursors of cell wall building blocks so there is really nothing to mutate,” Professor Lewis said.

“We’ve been operating under the dogma that the development of resistance is inevitable and we need to focus on introducing antibiotics faster than pathogens can acquire resistance,” he said.

“Teixobactin gives us an example of how we can develop an alternative strategy on developing compounds where resistance is not going to rapidly develop,” he added.

?About 25,000 people a year in Europe alone already die from infections that are resistant to antibiotics and the World Health Organisation has described the rise of antibiotic-resistance as one of the most significant global risks facing modern medicine.

Eoin Treacy's view

Antibiotic resistance is a significant developing threat but is one we as a species are capable of overcoming provided the necessary resources are committed to the fight. For the companies that come up with patentable solutions the rewards are likely to be very large indeed.  I suspect we are going to hear a lot more about teixobactin in future.