The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, part of the National Institutes of Health, has started an early-stage clinical trial for an oral antibiotic intended to treat Clostridium difficile infections.
The Phase I trial of CRS3123, developed by the Boulder, Colo.-based pharmaceutical company Crestone, will include up to 30 healthy people ranging from 18 to 45 years old in a dose-escalation study to evaluate the drug's safety and tolerability.
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Trial participants will be assigned to three groups of 10 each. In each group, eight members will receive either a placebo or a certain dose of the drug. The study will be complete by March 2015.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention labeled C. diff as an urgent public health threat last year in a report on antibiotic resistance, as the bacteria is naturally resistant to many drugs that treat other infections. However, resistance to drugs currently being used to treat the infection is not currently an issue, according to the NIH.
About 250,000 people in the United States require hospital care for C. diff annually, and at least 14,000 die from the infection, according to the CDC.
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