Shortages and drug-resistant germs have renewed attention on a $6 billion proposal in Congress that would reconfigure the way antimicrobial drugs are developed and sold.

Recent shortages of amoxicillin, an effective antibiotic that pediatricians have long relied upon to treat strep throat and ear infections in children, have put a spotlight on an urgent global threat: the world’s shrinking arsenal of potent antibiotics and the lack of incentives to develop them.

The broken marketplace for new antimicrobial drugs has stirred debate over a bill, languishing in Congress, that would dramatically reconfigure the way antibiotics are discovered and sold in the United States…

Read the full story in The New York Times here.