There is clearly something wrong with pharmaceutical innovation.

Antibiotic-resistant infections sicken more than two million Americans every year and kill at least 23,000. The World Health Organization has warned that a “post-antibiotic era” may be upon us, when “common infections and minor injuries can kill.” Even the world’s tycoons consider the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria one of the crucial global risks of our times, according to a survey by the World Economic Forum.

Image: Tatiana Travis, a microbiologist, determining a bacterium’s resistance to an antibiotic at a lab at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Development of broadly useful drugs is lagging. Credit David Goldman/Associated Press