Fig. 1

The pipeline (a) and the status (b) of novel antibiotic development. Novel drugs discovered in laboratories need to go through several stages including Investigational New Drug (IND) application, clinical development, and New Drug Application (NDA) before they become approved. Non-traditional chemicals include bacteriophage/phage products (n = 28), indirect-acting small molecules (n = 23), large molecules (n = 19), biologics (antibody or others, n = 8), immunomodulators (n = 7), nucleic acid-based products (n = 4), indirect-acting peptide (n = 2), and microbiome modifying agents (n = 1)