In Profile: Philippe Villain-Guillot, Nosopharm
Philippe Villain-Guillot, Nosopharm, highlights how the company is countering multi-drug antimicrobial resistance and explains how partnering with the company is an opportunity for the pharmaceutical businesses to grow their antibacterial pipeline
Who are you and what do you do?
Nosopharm is an innovative young drug discovery biotechnology company. Its mission is to address the unmet medical need of bacterial multidrug resistance to antibiotics through the discovery and development of novel first-in-class antibacterial molecules.
The company was founded in 2009 and works in partnership with biopharmaceutical companies to tackle antibiotic resistance in hospital-acquired Gram-negative infections.
We are developing a novel class of broad spectrum antibacterials, the Odilorhabdins, discovered consecutively to the screening of an original microbial bioresource. This novel class is based on a new chemical scaffold with a new mode of action.
What have you focussed on recently?
The company’s recent focus has been on developing its anti-infective drug discovery platform.
The platform is based on the medicinal chemistry of Odilorhabdins, a novel class of antibiotics discovered by the company. This novel class has a very high potential to cure life-threatening multi-resistant hospital-acquired infections and targets the most concerning multidrug-resistant Gram-negative pathogens: Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter spp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii.
These bacterial pathogens are responsible for 49% of hospital-acquired infections in the EU.
In December, 2015, Nosopharm was selected to join ENABLE (European Gram-negative Antibacterial Engine), an Innovative Medicines Initiative project working to advance the development of potential antibiotics against multidrug resistant Gram-negative infections.
This £73.8m (€100m) project aims to identify at least three antibacterial lead molecules with promising antibacterial activity, two antibacterial clinical candidate molecules and to enter at least one compound into preclinical and Phase 1 clinical studies.
Nosopharm will bring NOSO-95179 to the project, a first-in-class antibiotic for the treatment of multidrug-resistant hospital-acquired infections.
What is your latest service/innovation?
We have developed expertise in the medicinal chemistry of Odilorhabdin, the new class of antibiotics to which NOSO-95179 belongs.
It was discovered consecutively to the lead optimisation of NOSO-95, the first molecule of the new class of Odilorhabdin antibiotics and is a first-generation Odilorhabdin targeting the Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae in hospital-acquired infections (KPC, NDM, OXA-48). It also inhibits bacterial translation with a new mode of action and shows clear in vitro antibacterial activity against multidrug-resistant clinical isolates (eg NDM-1), along with in vivo efficacy in different murine infection models and good tolerability.
As no cross-resistance with currently used antibiotics was observed, this underpins its potential for treating those infections originating in hospitals that endanger patients’ lives.
How can you benefit the pharmaceutical sector?
Hospital pathogens with multiple antibiotic resistances are responsible for at least 380,000 infections and 25,000 directly related deaths per year in the European Union.
From a global perspective, antimicrobial resistance could kill up to 10m people every year by 2050 and could cost £69.4tn (€94tn) to the world economy.
High development costs, market competition and low return on investment have caused large pharmaceuticals to disinvest in antibacterial drug discovery and development.
The lack of new antibacterials brought to market also reflects a failure of discovery, as commercially viable compounds with anti-Gram-negative activity have not been found.
That is why many governments and public health authorities are proposing strong new incentives to drive more investment from pharmaceutical companies into the antibiotic field.
Partnering with Nosopharm is an opportunity for the pharmaceutical companies to grow their antibacterial pipeline, in order to re-arm the antibiotic arsenal for the treatment of very concerning resistant Gram-negative infections.
What are your future plans?
Nosopharm will be supported by ENABLE through the next stages of development with access to significant technical expertise and financial support.
The company plans to complete a Phase 1 clinical trial of NOSO-95179, with ENABLE funding 75% of internal R&D costs while the program is active.
During the project, the company will also participate in collaborative research with ENABLE’s expert partners across Europe.
Nosopharm is also working on the development of 2nd-generation Odilorhabdins with extended spectrum of antibacterial activity.
Nosopharm aims to raise £4m (€5.5m) in 2016 with venture-capital funds to complete the financing of its development plan.