Venatorx Pharmaceuticals’ cefepime-taniborbactam was superior to standard of care meropenem for treating complicated urinary tract infections in Phase 3 trials, the Pennsylvania-based company announced last week.
The investigational antibiotic—which targets carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales and P. aeruginosa—generated bacterial eradication in 70% of participants compared to 58% treated with meropene, and cefepime-taniborbactam’s superiority was maintained through a late follow-up,…
Centauri Therapeutics has raised over $32.6 million in Series A financing to support the development of novel antibacterial candidates for difficult-to-treat infections, the company announced Wednesday. Investors in the round include Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, Evotec and Novo Holdings REPAIR Impact Fund.
The London-based biotech won CARB-X backing in 2020 for its ABX01 dual-acting immunotherapy to treat serious infections caused by Gram-negative pathogens (including drug-…
Bugworks Research has secured $18 million in Series B financing, the biopharma announced Wednesday. The funds will support the clinical development of BWC0977, the India-based company’s novel broad-spectrum antibiotic against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, among other projects.
Currently in Phase 1, BWC0977 has had CARB-X backing since 2017.
The University of Washington’s Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) last week released what it described as “the first comprehensive assessment” of the global burden of antimicrobial resistance. Published in The Lancet, the study finds AMR “a leading cause of death around the world, with the highest burdens in low-resource settings.”
IHME said AMR was directly responsible for an estimated 1.27 million deaths in 2019—far more than HIV/AIDS or malaria—while approximately 4.…
Decreased Shigella prevalence may “partly explain the mortality benefit” observed in children under age 5 who received azithromycin in the Africa-based MORDOR trial, according to a study published last week in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
The new study analyzed samples from child participants in 30 villages in Niger and found a 64% reduction in Shigella infections after two years in those who received Pfizer’s Zithromax tablet biannually compared to children treated with a placebo.…
Venatorx Pharmaceuticals announced Monday that it has entered into a licensing agreement with Roche to advance drug treatments for infections caused by carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) bacteria.
Boston University-led nonprofit CARB-X gave the Pennsylvania-based company $15 million between 2019 and 2020 to develop a new class of oral antibiotics to treat infections caused by multidrug-resistant N. gonorrhoeae.
Entasis Therapeutics’ investigational sulbactam-durlobactam (SUL-DUR) antibiotic was non-inferior versus standard colistin at preventing 28-day all-cause mortality in people with carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii infections, the Massachusetts-based biotech announced Monday, citing new Phase 3 data. The topline results also showed that SUL-DUR patients had higher clinical cure rates and lower rates of nephrotoxicity compared to those receiving the last-resort polymyxin-class antibiotic, per…
Basilea Pharmaceutica announced Monday that the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority has increased its total investment in the Swiss company’s ceftobiprole antibiotic candidate to $134.2 million.
The new tranche of $4.3 million will support a Phase 3 trial to evaluate the intravenous drug as an S. aureus bacteremia treatment, the press release said.
The Basel-based company won funding from CARB-X in May to develop a novel class of antibiotics against drug-…
The Geneva-based Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) announced Tuesday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and Shionogi to accelerate LMIC access to the Osaka-based drugmaker’s antibiotic cefiderocol (Fetroja).
The collaboration will help introduce the drug—indicated for bacterial infections in patients with limited treatment options—into health systems and provide clinical guidance to…
The Access to Medicine (AtM) Foundation released a new report last week highlighting some biotechs that are finding novel ways to get badly needed antibiotics to patients in low- and middle-income countries despite notoriously difficult market conditions.
Drawing on “new data and discussions with stakeholders,” the report said that small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs) now account for 75% of all late-stage antimicrobials in the R&D pipeline, with many large companies having…