I would not be surprised if DARPA were already in this space. They have been researching the affects of Sulforaphane on reversing autism in children. Surely they must have teams of people working on antibiotics.
Are there any scientists here from DARPA that can chime in?
The DoD has the DTRA (Defense Threat Reduction Agency) Chemical and Biological Technologies Directorate, which throws funding at things like antibiotics development. Achaogen, mentioned in the blog post here, has received DTRA funding in the past.
BARDA (a US HHS program) is also a huge player in this space.
Superbugs are virtually certain to kill a huge number of people, because virulent resistant strains gonna Black Death.
But we can't get a payoff within a quarter or whatever the payoff window for the seed money is? Eh, don't bother investing.
This is where the government must step in. Oh right, gubberment baaaad.
Seriously, if these have promise they should be funded for 10 years by a multinational conglomerate.
I mean, maybe the Chinese government will step in. You know, the only forward-thinking major government in the world? What a world.