MRSA Ab

Nanopharma is conducting toxicology and pharmacologic studies of a new antibiotic for the treatment of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Overview of the disease

Conventional antibiotics and "superbugs"

Bacteria, like all living organisms, are continuously adapting to environmental challenges.  As a result of these changes, conventional antibiotics are increasingly unable to keep pace with drug-resistant bacterial infections. Today, public institutions such as hospitals, nursing homes and infant day care centers have become breeding grounds for the most tenacious drug-resistant pathogens ("superbugs"). The result has been an alarming rise in drug resistant bacteria such as staphylococci, enterococci, streptococci, and pneumococci infections, as well as an increase in tuberculosis, and sepsis. For several decades, β-lactam antibiotics have been widely used to control bacterial infections. Since the discovery of penicillin, countless numbers of variations have been tested and a variety of successful modifications have been made to the basic four-membered ring structure which characterizes the generic β-lactam compound.

Despite the advances in drug research, infections caused by bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are becoming extremely difficult to treat with conventional antibiotics, leading to a sharp rise in clinical complications and enormous socio-economical costs. There simply are not enough new drugs in the pharmaceutical pipeline to keep pace with drug-resistant bacterial infections. The development of narrow spectrum antibacterial drugs which target new pathways and biological entities (whether bacteriostatic or bacteriocidal) is in grave demand.

Our technology

The search for alternative antibiotics against staphylococcus infections requires the right amount of good science, business acumen and commitment. Nanopharma's technologies and compounds for the treatment of MRSA are not only effective but also unique in their mechanism of action. Unlike other β-lactam antibiotics such as penicillin, which inhibit cell wall crosslinking proteins and afford a broad spectrum of bacteriocidal activity, our N-thiolated lactams are bacteriostatic in their behavior, highly specific and operate through an entirely different mechanistic mode. Furthermore, whereas most drugs require demanding multi-step syntheses or semi-synthetic procedures, these compounds can be prepared in a single chemical step, thereby simplifying production systems and reducing costs. Accordingly, our MRSA antibiotic is a efficient and effective way to turn a basic chemistry discovery into a therapeutic product.