Washington

A SPARKLING and sprawling 48,000-square-foot, two-story structure, decorated with artwork of animals etched onto interior glass walls, recently opened its doors 37 kilometres outside Indianapolis with one sole purpose: to keep the globe's 70 billion farm animals healthy.

That increasingly means less reliance on antibiotics for animals. So the new research centre, built and operated by Elanco, a unit of Eli Lilly & Co, is focused exclusively on developing vaccines as alternatives. It's all part of a broader effort by the drug industry to join forces with the medical establishment to reduce use of antibiotics, as resistant superbugs become more prevalent in hospitals, nursing homes and other public spaces.