What is the “game-changing” antibiotic breakthrough?

The pharma sector made the mainstream headlines today with the announcement of a ‘game-changing’ antibiotic discovery.

The compound involved is called teixobactin. The firm behind the discovery: US-based NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals, whose co-founder, Dr. Kim Lewis in collaboration with the University of Bonn and Northeastern University (of which Dr. Lewis acts as director for the antimicrobial discovery center.

As reported in the journal Nature (Ling et. al. 2015), the compound shows potent killing against a broad panel of bacterial pathogens including methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE). In addition, teixobactin showed favorable drug properties including excellent efficacy in three mouse models of infection (septicemia, skin and lung).

In collaboration with the University of Bonn (Bonn, Germany) and Northeastern University (Boston, MA), teixobactin was shown to inhibit bacterial cell wall synthesis by binding to two cell wall components: lipid II and lipid III. The article reports that no resistant mutants of either S. aureus or Mycobacterium tuberculosis could be generated.

“The need for new antibiotics is acute due to the global problem of pathogen drug resistance. Teixobactin’s dual mode of action and binding to non-peptidic regions suggest that resistance will be very difficult to develop” said Dr. Kim Lewis, co-founder of NovoBiotic. Teixobactin was discovered in a screen against the company’s extensive extract library generated from previously uncultured microbes.

“The discovery of teixobactin is further evidence that our unique culturing technologies provide ready access to new chemistry from nature that can be screened for novel drug leads” said Dr. Dallas Hughes, President of NovoBiotic.