Gram-positive nosocomial infections
Approximately two million hospital patients in the USA alone contract adventitious infections each year and this contributes to mortality in 90,000 patients. In this setting, where antibiotics have been used extensively, more than 60% of Gram +ve infections can be caused by bacteria such as MRSA, VISA, VRE and PRSP, which are resistant to many of the major classes of antibacterials. Drug resistance is closely associated with mortality.
For many years vancomycin has been the major therapeutic approach for infections caused by multi drug resistant strains such as MRSA. However, vancomycin resistance has increased to problematic levels and alternatives are needed. Some new therapies have been targeted at this area including the oxazolidinones (Linezolid) and lipoglycopeptides (daptomycin), however no available therapy is ideal in terms of spectrum of activity, convenience of administration and side-effect profile. Furthermore, resistance to the newly introduced agents is already arising.
There remains a strong need for new agents for Gram-positive nosocomial infections which do not exhibit cross-resistance with existing classes and which have a good prognosis for resistance development. Novacta is progressing its lantibiotics through the preclinical stage of development and has already demonstrated an excellent spectrum of activity covering all the common classes of drug resisitant Gram-positive bacteria encountered in the hospital setting (including MRSA, VISA, VRE and PRSP). Additional indications such as ventilator-associated pneumonia and nasal clearance of MRSA are also under evaluation. The mode-of-action of Novacta's lantibiotics also makes them intrinsically promising from the perspective of resistance development.