Antex Antibiotic Kills Bacteria Highly Resistant to Mupirocin

GAITHERSBURG, Md. -- Antex Pharma Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Antex Biologics Inc., announces that AP158, its lead antibiotic compound, killed mupirocin-resistant bacteria in recently completed in vitro studies. The studies, which entailed five successive assays, showed AP158 to be potent and bactericidal against mupirocin-resistant and mupirocin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus strains.

Mupirocin is a leading commercially available antibiotic used extensively in hospitals to treat Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes infections. Mupirocin is used in hospitals to prevent infections in surgical patients undergoing general, gynecologic, cardiothoracic and neurosurgical operations, as well as in patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis and in intensive care units to decrease the incidence of disease caused by S. aureus and S. pyogenes. Recent independent analyses, including the Sentry Anti-microbial Surveillance Program sponsored by the University of Iowa and Tufts University, have documented significant increases in the frequency of mupirocin-resistant bacteria, categorizing the resistance as high-level (those with an entirely new binding enzyme) and low-level (those with a modified binding enzyme). Antex's studies were performed using mupirocin-resistant bacteria showing both high-level and low-level resistance.

Antex previously announced that AP158 has shown activity against other antibiotic resistant bacteria, including: methicillin, macrolide, quinolone, and vancomycin resistant S. aureus; vancomycin resistant enterococci; and macrolide resistant S. pyogenes.

"Antibiotic resistance is an ever increasing cause of alarm in the healthcare industry," said Dr. W. James Jackson, Antex's vice president of research. "Many common bacterial infections now resist all commercially available treatments. AP158, with its demonstrated ability to kill bacteria resistant to mupirocin, methicillin and vancomycin, provides a new weapon in the resistance battle."

Antibiotic resistance is a serious concern in the management of hospital acquired infections and can double the average hospital length of stay. The Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, has estimated that the annual cost of treating antibiotic resistant infections in the United States may be as high as $30 billion. The new findings continue to support AP158's initial indication as a treatment for community and hospital acquired skin and soft tissue infections.

AP158 is the lead drug in a series of new chemical compounds with a novel mechanism of action. Antex scientists have discovered and are developing three series of novel structures providing the company a proprietary position covering ten million new chemical entities. The compounds, including AP158, were derived using Antex's "targeted molecular diversity" approach, which integrates structure-based rational drug design with combinatorial chemistry to design and optimize a diverse compound library.

Antex Biologics, and its wholly owned subsidiary, AntexPharma, is a biopharmaceutical company committed to developing and marketing new products to prevent and treat infections and related diseases. The company maintains strategic alliances with GlaxoSmithKline, Aventis Pasteur, and the US Department of Defense. The company currently has two products in human clinical trials and expects to have three additional products in clinical trials within the next six months.

Source: PRNewswire