Biotech Values

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TTPH Does anyone on the board follow Tetraphase Pharm (TTPH)? The Co. reports having a synthetic process for modifying tetracycline antibiotics that will provide new tetracycline-based antibiotics that will address multidrug resistant infections. They have one lead candidate in phase 3 trials at present. See the following:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01844856?term=Eravacycline&rank=1


From the TTPH website: We believe that our proprietary chemistry technology, licensed from Harvard on an exclusive worldwide basis and enhanced at Tetraphase, represents a significant innovation in the creation of tetracycline drugs and has the potential to reinvigorate the clinical and market potential of the class.

The tetracycline class of antibiotics has been used successfully for more than 50 years. Unlike our tetracycline compounds, all tetracyclines on the market and under development of which we are aware are produced semi-synthetically, first in bacteria and then modified in a limited number of ways by available chemistry. These conventional methods have only been able to produce tetracycline antibiotics with limited chemical diversity, making it difficult for conventional technology to create tetracycline antibiotics that address a wide variety of multi-drug resistant bacteria. In part, because of the challenges in creating novel tetracycline molecules, only one tetracycline antibiotic has been developed and approved by the FDA for sale in the United States in the past 30 years.

By contrast, our proprietary technology makes it possible to create novel tetracycline antibiotics using a practical, fully synthetic process for what we believe is the first time. This fully synthetic process avoids the limitations of bacterially derived tetracyclines and allows us to chemically modify many positions in the tetracycline scaffold, including most of the positions that we believe could not practically be modified by any previous method. Using our proprietary chemistry technology, we can create a wider variety of tetracycline-based compounds than was previously possible, enabling us to pursue novel tetracycline derivatives for the treatment of multi-drug resistant bacteria that are resistant to existing tetracyclines and other classes of antibiotic products.

The diagram below illustrates the tetracycline core scaffold. Scaffold positions marked with dots have been modified to date using conventional chemistry to create either tetracycline drugs that have been marketed or drug candidates of which we are aware that are currently in development. Our fully synthetic process also allows for modification of the positions marked with dots, but with greater opportunity for substitution than is possible using conventional chemistry. The scaffold positions marked with stars in the diagram below indicate useful positions that we have modified through our fully synthetic process that could not practically be modified by conventional chemistry.