Trius said that it may receive up to $29.5m in support of development efforts under the new DTRA contract, which is funded as part of DTRA’s Transformational Medical Technologies Initiative (TMTI).
Pursuant to the contract, Trius is expected to apply its proprietary Focused Antisense Screening Technology (FAST) discovery platform to identify the targets of antibacterial compounds from marine natural product libraries developed in the laboratory of William Fenical, professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
Reportedly, Trius will then apply its structure-based drug design and development capabilities in an effort to optimise promising antibacterial compounds for activity against gram-negative biodefense pathogens such as Yersinia pestis, Francisella tularensis and Burkholderia pseudomallei. Trius believes that these compounds will also be active against gram-negative pathogens involved in common hospital acquired infections.
Trius Therapeutics said that this is the second government-funded research contract that has been awarded to it. In September of 2008, Trius entered into a five-year contract with the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease (NIAID), a component of the National Institutes of Health, under which Trius may receive up to $27.7m.