Affinium selects superbugs antibiotic candidate

The candidate is one of multiple compounds from Affinium’s Galapagos program and has been selected for its potential as an intravenous and oral antibiotic against hospital and community MRSA.

Affinium believes resistance to the drug candidate will be slow to develop due to its novel mechanism of action, selectively inhibiting a bacterial pathway to kill bacteria without any detectable side-effects.

“The recent advancements of our MRSA program represent an important milestone in the development of a new class of breakthrough antibiotics for us,” said Dr John Mendlein, Affinium’s chairman and CEO. “The last time the industry targeted a new pathway with an antibiotic that bugs had never seen before was the fluoroquinolone class in the 1960s.”

He continued, “In its early stages, our Galapagos project was probably too pioneering for big pharma to support. However, Affinium’s novel approach to drug discovery has allowed our team to accelerate the development of our MRSA program. With further scientific insights, substantial additional investment in R&D and more hard work, we have the potential to turn our Galapagos project into multiple medical breakthrough products.”