Clostridium Difficile
Clostridium difficile (C.difficile) is an anaerobic bacterium that commonly occurs in the intestinal tract of humans and domestic animals. The organism is capable of forming spores that are widespread throughout the environment, are difficult to destroy and readily cause harmful infections in vulnerable people - most notably elderly patients in hospitals and nursing homes who have been treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics.
During the past decade, new hyper-virulent strains of C.difficile, causing significantly higher morbidity and mortality, have rapidly spread in hospital wards across the US and Europe. Recent outbreaks of C. difficile have resulted in many fatalities. While such crises have done much to raise public awareness and have provided a powerful driver for the improvement of containment procedures and hygene, the treatment options for C difficile infections (CDI) remain extremely limited. The organism has proved particularly adept at acquiring resistance against many antibiotics and only two - metronidazole and vancomycin - remain effective. The risk of wide-spread resistance development against these drugs of last resort is considerable and new, effective treatments are urgently required.
Novacta Therapeutics has identified highly promising candidates for the treatment of CDI. Based on a class of compound known as Type II Lantibiotics, these molecules have properties that make them ideally suited as a new, effective and selective treatment for CDI in the future:
- Potent activity against C. difficile, including the problematic 027 hypervirulent strain
- Improved selectivity for C. difficile over the normal gut flora
- Excellent efficacy in CDI models
- No oral absorption reaching high levels at the target site
- No evidence of significant toxicity
- Outstanding resistance prognosis and no tendency to induce VRE
Novacta Therapeutics is progressing its most advanced candidate through preclinical studies, with the aim of reaching the clinical stages of development during 2009.