Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc (IPIX)

[To infinity and beyond!]

OK. Have had a chance to read a bit more of the NEJM stuff- pretty short article really.

Agreed that it highlights a drug- also a gm + agent- years away from where Brilacidin is. So why the attention?

Much of the hoopla was centered on the iCHIP, a new method for growing bacteria that normallly could not survive in the lab. Some of the team that developed iCHIP also then found the new substance in soil (taken from a Maine field in 2009). It was named after the greek word for wall Teixobactin. No evidence of resistance noted thus far in testing.

I mean, you have got to be kidding, right? A novel drug that destroys bacterial cell walls with no evidence of resistance? And it is not Brilacidin? Sheesh.

I think the article got major play in the NEJM because of the ability to grow bacteria in labs that could never have been grown before. This was what led to the big paper in Nature in January.

The profs behind it are at Northeastern here in Boston, and their company NovoBiotics is in Cambridge and the NEJM, as noted in published in Waltham, another Boston suburb. In addition to the truly novel nature of the iCHIP, and the promise of the drug. I would guess there is some personal connection somewhere, but who knows.

I agree with the rest of you- the story of Brilacidin is also pretty damn compelling.