Many antibiotics developed for use in animal production are “cast-offs” from products originally intended to be marketed to humans. Therefore, the decline in the development of new human antibiotics suggests there may a similar decline in the development of new antibiotics for food animal production.
The share of food-animal antibiotics as a portion of all veterinary drug approvals has declined from 62 percent in 1992-1994 to 40 percent in 2013-2015. The decline reflects increasing development of new animal drugs approved for companion animals, from 30 percent of all approvals in 1992-1994 to 47 percent in 2013-2015.
Given the overall decline in the number of all animal drug approvals between 1992 and 2015, the decline in the share of food-animal antibiotics approvals also reflects a decline in the number of approvals for such drugs. — USDA Economic Research Service
