€85 Million European Programme Targets Novel Antibiotics

MEDINA will develop its first novel antibiotic in a new European consortium aimed at bringing innovative solutions to fight bacterial infectious diseases.

More than 30 European universities and companies, led by GlaxoSmithKline and Uppsala University, are joining forces in a 6-year programme funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) to develop novel antibiotics against Gram-negative pathogens in a project called ENABLE (European Gram Negative Antibacterial Engine).

The Antibiotic Crisis

The world faces a growing epidemic of antibiotics resistance, however only two new classes of antibiotics have been brought to the market in the last 30 years. The discovery and development of new antibiotics is essential to maintain medical advances but poses significant scientific, clinical, and financial challenges, particularly for antibiotics active against Gram-negative bacteria (such as E.coli). Such bacteria have effective barriers against drugs, making treatment difficult, resistance likely and development costs and risks high. In addition, any new antibiotics brought to the market would likely be used cautiously to delay the development of resistance, adding an additional financial challenge in recouping the development costs.

Public Private Route Forward

In response to such barriers in  the development of novel antibiotics, the IMI, a research partnership between the European Commission and major pharmaceutical companies (through EFPIA, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations), has launched New Drugs for Bad Bugs (ND4BB), a series of projects to target the bottlenecks in the development and effective use of novel antibiotics.

The ENABLE project, the third within the ND4BB series, spans 13 countries and brings together 32 partners with the mission to establish a significant anti-bacterial drug discovery platform for the progression of research programmes through discovery and Phase I clinical trials. A preliminary portfolio of programmes will be expanded through open calls outside the consortium to create a full development pipeline, with the ultimate goal to deliver at least one novel anti-bacterial candidate against gram-negative infections into Phase II clinical trials by 2019.

This joint public and private investment through the IMI reflects the changing nature of drug development for high-risk areas such as antibiotics, and has the mission to mobilise expertise from universities and industry in Europe to meet global challenges. It places Europe at the forefront of collaborative research between industry and academia for health challenges.

“MEDINA brings to the project one of the novel antibiotic molecules that will be developed within this partnership. Our participation in this programme represents a fantastic opportunity to jointly develop one of our most advanced compounds in our pipeline,” said Olga Genilloud, Scientific Director.

MEDINA (Fundación MEDINA) is an independent non-profit R&D organisation established jointly by MSD, the government of Andalucía and the University of Granada in Spain. The centre discovers new molecules from its proprietary natural product libraries to develop new medicines that respond to unmet medical needs. MEDINA offers to academic and industrial partners its capabilities to discover new drug candidates with the potential to be developed as new treatments against infectious diseases.

“MEDINA offers a unique and longstanding expertise in drug discovery.  We are committed with the global research effort for the discovery of new antibiotics, as continuity of a long history of success which has resulted in some of the most important breakthrough drugs available to patients today”, says Olga Genilloud.