The first new antibiotic in 50 years to tackle a common superbug will be tested on patients.<\/p>\n
The drug, which targets one of the bacteria considered to pose the biggest threat to human health, has been hailed as an \u201cexciting\u201d development in the fight against antibiotic resistance<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Monday, Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, announced that it will take zosurabalpin<\/a> into the third and last phase of testing on humans.<\/p>\n It is the first drug in five decades to show promise of tackling Acinetobacter baumannii, a pathogen which is described as a \u201cpriority\u201d by the World Health Organisation and an \u201curgent threat\u201d by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US national public health agency.<\/p>\n The drug-resistant bacteria<\/a> disproportionately impact patients who are in the hospital, causing infections such as pneumonia and sepsis.<\/p>\n It is estimated that between 40 and 60 per cent of infected patients, many of whom are immunocompromised because of conditions such as cancer, die as a result of the bug.<\/p>\n One of the reasons it is so difficult to treat is that it has a double-walled \u201cmembrane\u201d protecting it from attack, so it is difficult to get drugs into it and to keep them in, experts say.<\/p>\n Zosurabalpin, which has been developed alongside researchers at Harvard University, targets the \u201cmachine\u201d which stops the outer membrane from forming properly.<\/p>\n It works differently to all existing antibiotics and it is hoped that it could lay the foundations for future drugs.<\/p>\n Drug-resistant bacteria<\/p>\n Michael Lobritz, global head infectious diseases at Roche, said: \u201cOur goal is to contribute new innovations to overcome antimicrobial resistance, one of the biggest infectious disease challenges to public health.\u201d<\/p>\n The phase-three trial, which it is hoped will start later this year or in early 2026, will look at around 400 patients with a carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter Baumannii (CRAB) infection who will either receive zosuarbalpin or the current standard of care.<\/p>\n It is hoped that the drug will be approved by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n Larry Tsai, senior vice president and global head of immunology and product development at Genentech, a unit of Roche, said that the drug-resistant bacteria \u201care present in every country of the world\u201d .<\/p>\n He said that \u201cthe innovative biology involved in this research could potentially reveal new insights into the structure of bacterial membranes, possibly leading to the discovery of new antibiotics<\/a> in the future\u201d.<\/p>\n Pharmaceutical companies, including Roche, have in the past been unwilling to pursue new antibiotics because of a difficult market in which the drugs are used sparingly to try and avoid resistance.<\/p>\n However, the UN has warned that if nothing is done to address the issue, drug-resistant diseases could cause 10 million deaths<\/a> each year by 2050 and cause a worldwide financial crash.<\/p>\n \u2018Exciting development\u2019<\/p>\n Dr Alistair Farley, scientific lead at the Ineos Oxford Institute, has welcomed zosurabalpin as an \u201cexciting development\u201d for the field.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is an urgent unmet clinical need to develop new antibiotics against priority pathogens such as CRAB where antimicrobial resistance is a major concern,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Dr Farley added that it \u201cmay provide a route to the development of new drugs\u201d.<\/p>\n Studies showing that it worked \u201cextremely well\u201d in test-tubes and mice were published in the journal Nature earlier this year.<\/p>\n Prof Laura Piddock, scientific director of the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership, said at the time that it provided \u201cdefinite hope\u201d for other hard-to-treat infections.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is exciting about this discovery is that one of the building blocks that are part of the outer part of this bacterial cell is disrupted by this new drug,\u201d Prof Piddock said.<\/p>\n Antimicrobial resistance was declared by world leaders to be \u201cone of the most urgent global health threats\u201d at the UN General Assembly earlier this year.<\/p>\n The declaration committed members to establish independent panels on antimicrobial resistance<\/a>, as many have done for climate change, and to reduce deaths linked to resistance by 10 per cent by 2030.<\/p>\n