The Company is focusing this research on some of the most difficult to treat multi-drug resistant or “pandrug-resistant” bacterium where there is a significant and growing medical need for new therapies. Cellceutix’s researchers have identified a series of host defense protein (HDP)-mimetic compounds that rapidly kill a variety of clinically-important Gram-negative pathogens. Infections caused by these pathogens are very difficult to treat because the bacteria are typically multi-drug resistant, which can lead to life-threatening conditions. The Company’s compounds are active against some of the most problematic pathogens, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli and Acinetobacter baumannii as well as highly multi-drug resistant ndm-1-producing K. pneumoniae. In laboratory studies being funded through government grants the Company’s compounds exhibited low toxicity against mammalian cell types.
Klebsiella pneumonia
In a thigh burden study of multi-drug resistant strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae in a mouse model, our defensin mimetic-compound CTIX-1278 was efficacious as compared to a carbapenem antibiotic that is widely used as a last line of defense against drug-resistant, Gram-negative bacteria. A second study is now being conducted at multiple dosing levels with various dosing parameters with the goal of increasing efficacy and further defining a treatment protocol for the compound.
