Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc (IPIX)

[frenchbroad]

A interesting list of international scientists who do the new Brilacidin Cryptococcus research: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.10.588976v1.article-info
Also interesting where they get the money: "We thank the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) grant numbers 2021/04977-5 (GHG) and 2022/08796-8 (CD), 2021/10599-3 (The Antimicrobial Resistance Institute of São Paulo, The Aries Project) and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) grant numbers 301058/2019-9, 404735/2018-5, and 405934/2022-0 (The National Institute of Science and Technology INCT Funvir) (GHG), both from Brazil, the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from the USA, grants R01AI153356 to GHG, R01AI053721 to JWK, and R21AI178330 to TLD, JSPS KAKENHI numbers 17H06411 (YY and CB) and 23H04882 (YY) from Japan. This work was funded by the Joint Canada-Israel Health Research Program, jointly supported by the Azrieli Foundation, Canada’s International Development Research Centre, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Israel Science Foundation (GHG)."

"Invasive fungal infections have a high mortality rate causing more deaths annually than tuberculosis or malaria. The global incidence of cryptococcal meningitis is estimated at more than 400,000 new cases annually, with 181,100 annual deaths. Despite the significant impact of these infections, treatment options for cryptococcosis remain limited. Cryptococcal cells are intrinsically resistant to echinocandins and they employ an arsenal of mechanisms that enable resistance to azoles, such as upregulation of the azole target gene ERG11.Taking into consideration the increased number of individuals susceptible to cryptococcal infection, the search for new antifungal agents has become more relevant than ever. Here, we present brilacidin (BRI) as a potential antifungal agent against C. neoformans. BRI is a small molecule host defense peptide mimetic that has previously exhibited broad-spectrum immunomodulatory/anti-inflammatory activity against bacteria and viruses. Recently, we showed that BRI potentiates the effect of azoles and CAS against several fungal species, decreasing Aspergillus fumigatus fungal burden in a murine chemotherapeutic model of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis and ablating disease development in a murine model of fungal keratitis. BRI alone was shown to inhibit the growth of C. neoformans, acting as a fungicidal drug at concentrations of 2.5 µM, but surprisingly also potentiated the activity of CAS against this species. We have demonstrated that BRI is potentially an important antifungal agent against cryptococcosis, particularly important for synergizing with CAS, which is otherwise ineffective against this pathogen."
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.10.588976v1.full