Date: 2013-09-02
Type of information: Collaboration agreement
Compound: improved antibiotics based on the polymyxin nucleus.
Company: Selcia (UK) Cantab (UK)
Therapeutic area: Infectious diseases
Type agreement: collaboration
R&D
Action mechanism:
Disease: multidrug resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections
Details: * On September 2, 2013, Selcia, the international life sciences CRO, has entered into a drug discovery collaboration with Cantab Anti-Infectives, the goal of which is to accelerate Cantab’s programme to develop improved antibiotics for multidrug resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections based on the polymyxin nucleus.
Cantab has recently been awarded a grant of £2.3m from the Biomedical Catalyst Fund to continue its programme in this area.
Polymyxins have become an important ‘last resort’ therapy for certain MDR Gram-negative infections, but suffer from complex pharmacokinetics and dose-limiting toxicities which often lead to sub-optimal therapy. Polymyxins are the only effective antibiotic to act specifically on the lipopolysaccharide of Gram-negative bacteria. Selcia will provide medicinal chemistry resource to:
• Generate a range of polymyxin-based entities to continue the optimisation of antibacterial activity against MDR strains in vitro
• Optimise the most promising entities to improve antibacterial activity in vivo
• Optimise therapeutic index
• Optimise to give a clinical candidate meeting all aspects of the target product profile.
Financial terms:
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