Clinical Trials

Date: 2014-09-08

Type of information: Presentation of results at a congress

phase: preclinical

Announcement: presentation of results at the annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC)

Company: Melinta Therapeutics (USA - CT)

Product: ESKAPE Pathogen Program including RX-P873

Action mechanism:

antibiotic. The ESKAPE Pathogen Program aims to generate new classes of antibiotics and new molecules to treat the extensively drug resistant (XDR) and multi-drug resistant (MDR) “superbug” bacteria, also known as the ESKAPE pathogens (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumanii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter species).
RX-P873, is a member of the pyrrolocytosine class, a new antibiotic class based on a molecular scaffold that has been rationally designed by Melinta for high binding affinity and broad-spectrum activity.
The program has yielded three novel classes of antibiotics, each built on a unique molecular structure designed to bind to specific validated sites on the bacterial ribosome that have not yet been targeted by approved antibiotics. Melinta has adapted these classes to cover XDR/MDR ESKAPE pathogens, to have a robust resistance profile and to show efficacy in key tissue types in predictive animal models of infection. From those classes, more than 2,500 molecules have been produced. Melinta is completing pre-clinical work on the most promising of these molecules to identify one or more leads to advance into Phase 1 clinical studies.

Disease:

Therapeutic area: Infectious diseases

Country:

Trial details:

Latest news:

• On September 8, 2014, Melinta Therapeutics provided an update on its ESKAPE Pathogen Program. These results were presented at the annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) (posters F-1555b and C-1373). In two posters presented at ICAAC, one such molecule, RX-P873, has been shown to be active against a range of Gram-negative bacteria, including MDR strains and those highlighted in the Center for Disease Control and Protection’s (CDC) list of urgent threats.
Specifically, RX-P873 was tested against Gram-negative species including ten from the enterobacteriaceae family* as well as Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii. Isolates were collected from the US and Europe in 2012-2013 to be representative of current resistance patterns.
RX-P873 was shown have potent activity against the enterobacteriaceae family, inhibiting greater than 97% of isolates. Results show narrow MIC distributions with MIC90 ranging from 0.25 – 4 ug/mL, indicating uniform susceptibility among samples. Notably, RX-P873 was shown to be highly active against P. aeruginosa including strains resistant to ceftazidime or meropenem. It was also the most active agent tested against A. baumannii, showing greater activity than colistin, a treatment considered by many to be the last line of defense for many difficult-to-treat infections.