PTC receives US$5m award from The Wellcome Trust
To support development of drugs to target multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria
US biopharmaceutical company PTC Therapeutics, has received a US$5m Seeding Drug Discovery (SDD) Award from The Wellcome Trust to support the development of small-molecule drugs that target infections caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) Gram-negative bacteria. PTC previously received a $5.4m SDD Award from the Wellcome Trust in 2010 to support its BMI1 oncology programme.
The discovery and development of new antibiotics are urgently needed due to the increased frequency of bacterial resistance to antibiotics in hospitals and in the community.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that approximately 1.7 million hospital-acquired bacterial infections cause or contribute to nearly 100,000 deaths in the US each year. Gram-negative bacteria are responsible for more than 30% of these infections.
PTC has identified a novel structural class of molecules that have potent activity against Gram-negative bacteria that are resistant to marketed antibiotics. The anti-infective program at PTC is currently in lead optimisation and advancing towards identifying a candidate for development.
