Big CBST drug-news, from after-bell on Friday (if anyone's already posted it, sorry for the duplication). Crossed on several agencies, this particular version is from Forbes...
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FDA Approves First-In-Class Antibiotic
Matthew Herper, 09.12.03, 6:54 PM ET
NEW YORK - The Food and Drug Administration approved the first antibiotic in a new class since the approval of Pfizer's Zyvox in 2000. Zyvox then represented the first new class in 35 years.
The injectable medicine, called daptomycin and sold under the brand-name Cubicin, will be used to treat certain complicated skin and soft-tissue infections that are resistant to methicillin, a currently available drug. More than 600,000 patients suffer from such infections annually. Staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria that causes these illnesses, is resistant to current drugs 60% of the time, according to Lexington, Mass.-based Cubist Pharmaceuticals (nasdaq: CBST - news - people ), which is selling the drug. Previously, Cubicin was known as Cidecin.
"The approval of Cubicin is particularly important as we face the growing public health crisis of bacterial resistance," Dr. Robert A. Weinstein, chairman of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Stroger Hospital of Cook County in Chicago and a Cubist scientific advisor, said in a prepared statement. "There has been a frightening increase in MRSA infections over the past decade, and the tools currently available to combat this problem have become less effective."
Cubicin was originally developed by Eli Lilly (nyse: LLY - news - people ), but was licensed to Cubist. Vicuron (nasdaq: MICU - news - people ), InterMune (nasdaq: ITMN - news - people ) and Genome Therapeutics (nasdaq: GENE - news - people ) are also developing injectable antibiotics to combat resistant bacteria.
