Is There Hope for New Antibiotics That will Save Us From Drug Resistant Bacteria?

According to the CDC in the US, drug-resistant infections sicken more than two million people every year, and kill upwards of 23,000. In 2018 alone, pharma giants Novartis, Sanofi and Allergan all sold off or closed up their antibiotics divisions. Janssen Pharmaceuticals (a division of Johnson & Johnson) announced an $818 million deal with a small CRISPER startup called Locus Biosciences to develop a radical new way to develop antibiotics, without causing resistance. Locus has designed CRISPR systems to target critical stretches of DNA, using an enzyme called Cas3 that shreds the DNA. Once loaded into phages and delivered to a patient, the CRISPR system would only prey on the bacteria causing the infection. The company's scientists hope to avoid any possibility of evolving resistance by targeting multiple indispensable genes. @ https://www.wired.com/story/antibiotics-are-failing-us-crispr-is-our-glimmer-of-hope/