In the early 2000s, addressing antibiotics resistance seemed like an insurmountable threat. The World Health Organization (WHO) projected that it would claim 8–10 million lives annually by 2050 if left unchecked. Antibiotics, long considered a miracle of modern medicine, had, over time, become increasingly ineffective as bacteria evolved mechanisms to resist them. What was once a triumph of science had slowly turned into a global nightmare, and finding the solution to this potential crisis had been as much about fixing economic systems as it was about developing new drugs. The good news is that by 2033, the world has turned the corner and addressed an enormous global health problem. How did we solve it “before we had to?”