Glox Therapeutics Ltd. has raised £4.3 million (US$5.37 million) in seed funding to develop targeted therapeutics against antibiotic-resistant gram-negative bacteria. The company was founded earlier this year as a spin-out from the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford.
Benzamide compounds acting as UDP-2,3-diacylglucosamine hydrolase (LpxH) (bacterial) inhibitors have been reported in an F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. patent to be useful for the treatment of gram-negative bacterial infections, particularly Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli infections.
A different class of antibiotics could ease the increasing resistance triggered by some gram-negative bacteria. LpxC inhibitors are not new, but all attempts to develop them have failed due to cardiovascular toxicity or ineffectiveness. A modification of the structure of these compounds may have solved the problem. Duke University scientists demonstrated the preclinical safety and efficacy of an LpxC inhibitor candidate against a wide selection of these pathogens.
Merck & Co. Inc. has reported the development of a novel monobactam for use in combination with its class A/C β-lactamase inhibitor (BIL) relebactam (MK-7655) in order to achieve the broadest activity against multidrug-resistant (MDR) gram-negative pathogens that express a variety of β-lactamases. The in vitro efficacy of the combination of the monobactam – MSD-045934942 – against a panel of MDR and non-MDR gram-negative bacteria was evaluated using in vitro broth microdilution testing.
Having demonstrated in previous work that drug-Fc conjugates (DFCs) are a promising treatment alternative for multidrug-resistant (MDR) gram-negative bacteria, researchers from the Center for Discovery and Innovation and Cidara Therapeutics Inc. presented results from the identification of CTC-177, a novel DFC, as a potential immunoprophylactic agent against MDR gram-negative bacterial infections.
A new web-based tool allowing rapid in silico prediction of the ability of candidate antibiotics to accumulate in gram-negative bacteria should enable subsequent prioritization of new compounds for synthesis and further evaluation, U.S. researchers reported Nov. 18, 2019, in Nature Microbiology.
A new web-based tool allowing rapid in silico prediction of the ability of candidate antibiotics to accumulate in Gram-negative bacteria should enable subsequent prioritization of new compounds for synthesis and further evaluation, U.S. researchers reported Nov. 18, 2019, in Nature Microbiology.
