Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc (IPIX)

[georgejjl]

Brilacidin may offer another option

Antibiotic-resistant superbugs creating deadly risks for hip and knee operations

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/22/antibiotic-resistant-superbugs-creating-deadly-risks-hip-knee/

http://www.ipharminc.com/new-blog/2018/3/7/brilacidin-as-a-novel-late-stage-antibiotic-drug-candidate

Nonpepeptidic mimetic drugs, such as Brilacidin, are considered especially attractive antibiotic candidates given favorable characteristics, including being: (i) highly selective (potent against target while leaving host cells unaffected); (ii) not prone to resistance mechanisms; (iii) relatively easy to produce at low costs; (iv) and stable during storage or upon administration.

Given its broad therapeutic profile, Brilacidin is being developed not only to treat serious skin infections, but also oral mucositis and inflammatory bowel disease, with planned extension as topical agent into dermatologic diseases.

Unique Antibacterial Properties of Defensins

Mechanistically, as to bacterial invasion, defensins -- upon which Brilacidin is modeled as a mimic of (pdf) -- are thought to target the structural plasticity/thermodynamic instability of invading toxins, thus increasing their susceptibility to proteolysis and degradation (for more information on this process, refer to this commentary and corresponding study).

Intra-cellular mechanisms, beyond just their membrane-lytic properties -- a distinctive “capacity for acting on multiple targets, at low dose, and by means of a variety of mechanisms” -- may also play (pdf) an important role in contributing to the overall antibacterial efficacy of AMP-based therapies (recent developments), such as Brilacidin via a “multiple-hit model” (pdf).

The Need for Newer and Better Antibiotics

As noted above, Brilacidin, as well as other similar AMP mimics or analogs -- given their broad “functional promiscuity” and “the increasing evidence” of their beneficial applications -- are being advanced (pdf) (and further optimized) as promising infectious disease agents in a world that is in need of newer and better antimicrobial drugs, toward Stopping the Superbugs.

A 2018 World Health Organization report reveals widespread antibiotic resistance among an estimated 500,000 people worldwide.

Regulatory agencies, as well as not-for-profit initiatives, such as Access to Medicine Foundation (see the Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark project), and CARB-X, also have started to work collaboratively, proposing incentives to spur development, to get more antibiotics to market. Interest in phage therapy is experiencing a resurgence, though this anti-infective approach faces unique regulatory hurdles. Synthetic versions of Teixobactin, a small molecule antibiotic active against gram-positive bacteria, are being studied, if still years away from testing in humans.

Brilacidin-ABSSSI

Good luck and GOD bless,

George