NovoBiotic reports the discovery of teixobactin, a new antibiotic without detectable resistance
No resistant mutants of either S. aureus or Mycobacterium tuberculosis could be generated
Cambridge, MA – January 7, 2015 – NovoBiotic
Pharmaceuticals, LLC announces the discovery and preclinical
development of teixobactin, a compound belonging to a new class
of antibiotics. As reported in the
journal Nature
(Ling et. al. 2015), the compound shows potent killing against a
broad panel of bacterial pathogens including methicillin
resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin resistant
enterococci (VRE). In addition, teixobactin showed favorable
drug properties including excellent efficacy in three mouse
models of infection (septicemia, skin and lung). In
collaboration with the University of Bonn (Bonn, Germany) and
Northeastern Universit (Boston, MA), teixobactin was shown to
inhibit bacterial cell wall synthesis by binding to two cell
wall components: lipid II and lipid III. The article reports
that no resistant mutants of either S. aureus or Mycobacterium
tuberculosis could be generated. “The need for new
antibiotics is acute due to the global problem of pathogen drug
resistance. Teixobactin’s dual mode of action and binding
to non-peptidic regions suggest that resistance will be very
difficult to develop” said Dr. Kim Lewis, co-founder of
NovoBiotic. Teixobactin was discovered in a screen against the
company’s extensive extract library generated from
previously uncultured microbes. “The discovery of
teixobactin is further evidence that our unique culturing
technologies provide ready access to new chemistry from nature
that can be screened for novel drug leads” said Dr. Dallas
Hughes, President of NovoBiotic.
About NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals LLC
We focus on the discovery of new antibiotics and
oncology drugs. While many marketed drugs in these therapeutic
areas are derived from microbes found in the soil, few new
classes have been introduced since the 1960s. Large
pharmaceutical companies have exhaustively screened the readily
culturable microbes, which represent <1% of microbes in the
environment. Thus, the vast majority of microbes in nature have
remained uncultured and inaccessible to drug discovery. Our
discovery platform overcomes this long-standing problem by
providing access to the >99% of microbes previously believed
to be “unculturable”, allowing us to explore a
virtually unlimited diversity of natural products.
Source:
NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals LLC
