Illegal antibiotic combinations threaten efforts to battle antimicrobial resistance

India is awash with antibiotic combinations that have no regulatory approval, according to a new study. This is likely to worsen the problem of antibiotic resistance. Seventy-five of the 118 fixed dose combinations (FDCs) – formulations of two or more drugs that are available as a single product – sold in India were not approved, even though this appears to be illegal. ‘Patients are consuming medicines that are potentially harmful,’ warns Allyson Pollock at Newcastle University, who co-authored the study. ‘We are seeing increasing sales of these.’