Brighton, U.K.-based Destiny Pharma aims to generate $12.9 million in new equity to develop drugs to fight antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections in hospitals, according to Reuters.
The biotech company plans to generate the funds by tapping the alternative investment market on the London Stock Exchange . The company's XF-73 drug candidate is reportedly effective against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. After 55 repeated exposures to the drug in a clinical trial, MRSA did not develop additional resistance to XF-73.
"The drugs are differentiated from traditional antibiotics and antibacterial drug approaches in that their mechanism of action targets bacterial cell membranes, killing bacteria very rapidly," Bill Love, PhD, founder and current chief scientific officer for Destiny, told Reuters. "Due to that mechanism of action in trials and studies, we've seen no emergence of bacterial resistance to excess drug action."
The drug could potentially eliminate or significantly reduce the presence of MRSA bacteria — which is colonized in about a third of people's noses — prior to surgical procedures to reduce the risk of post-surgical infections.
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