Motif Bio Plc (LON:MTFB) a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company which specializes in developing novel antibiotics designed to be effective against serious and life threatening infections caused by multi-drug resistant bacteria, commented today on the number of new articles in the media that highlight the fact that the world is on the brink of a ‘post-antibiotic era’. BBC News, The lancet (a major contributor to health and medical media coverage worldwide), EurekAlert (a central place through which universities, medical centers, journals, government agencies, corporations and other organizations engaged in research can bring their news to the media) have all written that scientists have warned of new bacteria found which is resistant to the drug that is only used when all other treatments fail. The drug known as colistin has little or no effect in treating infections that contain the newly mutated bacteria dubbed as the MCR-1 gene. The report published in the Lancet states (15%) of 523 samples of raw meat and 166 (21%) of 804 animals during 2011–14, and 16 (1%) of 1322 samples from inpatients with infection were found. Professor Jian-Hua Liu from South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou, China said that “These are extremely worrying results. The polymyxins (colistin and polymyxin B) were the last class of antibiotics in which resistance was incapable of spreading from cell to cell. Until now, colistin resistance resulted from chromosomal mutations, making the resistance mechanism unstable and incapable of spreading to other bacteria.”
Dr. Graham G. Lumsden CEO Motif BioSciences, Inc. said that this is “More evidence from a leading scientific journal (Lancet) that we are facing a global crisis”.
You can read the full report here: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(15)00424-7/abstract
Motif Bio Plc is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company which specializes in developing novel antibiotics designed to be effective against serious and life-threatening infections caused by multi-drug resistant bacteria. Iclaprim is being developed for the treatment of the most common and serious bacterial infections such as acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI) and hospital acquired bacterial pneumonia (HABP), including those caused by resistant strains such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and MDRSP (multi-drug resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae) that have become prevalent in patients in both the community and hospital settings. Motif is in discussions with pharmaceutical companies and universities to build a pipeline of innovative antibiotics targeting Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria.
