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Federal programmes like Medicare, which provides health care for the elderly,
聯邦項目，比如為老年人提供健康醫療的Medicare，
often pay hospitals for antibiotics as part of bundled payments for hospitalisation, not as reimbursement for a particular treatment, as in the case of cancer.
通常向醫院支付抗生素的費用作為住院費用捆綁支付的一部分，而非某種特定治療（如癌癥）的補助。
Aleks Engel of Novo Holdings, another asset manager, cites this model as a perennial gripe among fellow investors in antibiotics.
另一名資產經理，Novo Holdings的亞歷克斯·恩格爾把這種模式看做是抗生素投資者常年的抱怨。
Antibiotics which fall flat in the first few years can eventually become profitable,
在最初幾年中反響平平的抗生素最終可以盈利，
notes Bibhash Mukhopadhyay of New Enterprise Associates,an American venture-capital firm.
美國風險投資公司New Enterprise Associates的Bibhash Mukhopadhyay說到。
Until tests pinpoint the specific bug causing an infection (which may take days),
直到測試確定了導致感染的某種病菌（可能需要幾天時間），
doctors try several common antibiotics that usually work for the microbial culprit they suspect.
醫生才會嘗試其他抗生素，這些抗生素通常對那些疑似微生物元兇有效。
For example, when a first-line antibiotic stops working for most cases of pneumonia caused by bacteria
例如，當一線抗生素對大多數細菌引起的肺炎不起作用時
that grow in hospital patients' breathing tubes, the third-line antibiotic starts selling briskly.
（這些細菌生長于住院病人的呼吸管中）第三線抗生素才開始銷售火爆。
Many investors are too impatient to wait that long. Lacking other products on the market to turn a profit,
很多投資者都沒耐心等那么久。由于市場上沒有其他可盈利產品，
firms like Achaogen struggle to raise capital to cover their costs.
像Achaogen這樣的公司難以籌集資本來支付他們的成本。
Higher prices might help, but the debate in America is about how to lower the cost of drugs, not raise it.
更高的價格可能有所幫助，但美國的爭論是關于如何降低藥品成本，而不是增加它的成本。
Even if new antibiotics were paid for separately,
即便新抗生素的費用另付，
many investors think that patients for drugs like plazomicin are too few to make these drugs commercially viable in the near term.
很多投資者認為服用plazomicin這樣藥物的病人太少了，所以短期內，這些藥物不可能創造商業價值。
Making them profitable for firms will take ingenuity.
讓它們為公司盈利將需要獨創性。
This week a UN commission mused about granting large cash prizes for companies that create such drugs,
本周，一聯合國委員會考慮為研發這種藥物的公司提供大量現金獎項，
or paying them a subscription that guarantees fixed revenues regardless of use.
或是向他們支付一筆資金以保證，無論使用與否，他們都能獲得固定收益。
Given the x Prize and Netflix, these are at least familiar to venture capitalists.
鑒于x大獎和Netflix，這些至少對風險資本家來說并不陌生。
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