Wednesday, November 23, 2022
The Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) and Sumitomo Pharma Co., Ltd., have signed an agreement for GARDP to access and screen a set of compounds from Sumitomo Pharma’s compound library. The set of compounds will be tested by the Institut Pasteur Korea in an optimized high throughput screen with the aim of discovering novel compounds with antibacterial activity against drug-resistant bacteria. This agreement supports GARDP’s efforts to tackle serious bacterial infections by developing antibiotics while endeavouring to ensure their sustainable access.
With few antibiotics in development, antimicrobial resistance is a rapidly growing global health threat. Nearly 1.3 million people die of drug-resistant infections every year. Serious bacterial infections, and in particular those by Gram-negative bacteria, have been identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a global public health priority.
The compounds to be provided by Sumitomo Pharma have never been screened for antibacterial activity. They will be tested against bacteria identified as a critical priority for research and development of new antibiotics in WHO’s global priority pathogens list. Through this screening, GARDP seeks to identify novel compounds active against novel bacterial targets that could form the basis of new drugs.
“Access to these novel compounds is a unique opportunity for GARDP, and I am excited by the potential to find new antibiotics from the Sumitomo Pharma’s compound library,” said Professor Laura JV Piddock, Scientific Director, GARDP. “In only two years, our screening strategy has been validated and successfully screened over 100,000 compounds and natural product extracts. We are now well placed to identify new antibiotics.”
"Sumitomo Pharma is delighted to contribute to GARDP's antimicrobial resistance screening activity via our compound library and to share our know-how in the field of research of infectious diseases,” said Dr. Isao Shimizu, Executive Officer, Senior Executive Research Director, Drug Research Division, Sumitomo Pharma. "Sumitomo Pharma has committed to contributing to global health as part of its corporate social responsibility. As the discoverer and developer of meropenem, one of the most comprehensive and well-used carbapenem antibiotics in the world, Sumitomo Pharma recognizes that antimicrobial resistance is a social problem requiring international initiatives. As part of these efforts, we are developing KSP-1007 (a novel β-lactamase inhibitor) in a Phase 1 study in the United States for the treatment of carbapenem-resistant bacteria infections."
