The Wellcome Trust and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) today announced a collaboration to develop a new class of antibacterials to combat the rise of certain drug-resistant hospital-acquired infections, including those that lead to pneumonia. The collaboration is part of the Trust's Seeding Drug Discovery initiative, aimed at tackling unmet medical needs.

GSK has received a £4 million award from the Trust to accelerate development of compounds for the treatment of Gram-negative bacteria, which are becoming increasingly resistant to multiple antibacterials. GSK will make a matching contribution in staff, equipment and other programme costs. The Trust will receive a financial consideration on any commercial product resulting from the collaboration.

The research will target Gram-negative bacteria, such as Pseudomonas, Klebsiella and Acinetobacter, which are increasingly resistant to available antibacterials and commonly cause hospital-acquired pneumonia and septic shock, particularly in patients in intensive care units. Without adequate therapy, patients often confront a poor prognosis – mortality is high, and recovery, when it occurs, can be long and complicated.

Virtually no novel-mechanism antibacterials are in development to address this rising need. Gram-negative bacteria are particularly difficult to attack as they have an outer membrane surrounding the bacterial cell wall which interferes with drug penetration. New medicines must not only be toxic to the pathogen, but must first overcome the barriers to entry into the cell.

The resistance of various types of bacteria to treatment is creating new challenges in the management of infection. Few new antibiotic classes have entered the market in the last 40 years. In recognition of this challenge, GSK's Infectious Diseases Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery (ID CEDD) is dedicated to research into medicines for bacterial as well as other types of infections.

The Wellcome Trust's £91 million Seeding Drug Discovery initiative aims to assist researchers and companies, small and large, to take forward early-stage drug discovery projects in small-molecule therapeutics. It is intended that these projects will then be taken up for further research and development by industry.

The Wellcome Trust is currently accepting applications for the next round of funding under the Seeding Drug Discovery initiative. Preliminary applications submitted by 4 May 2007 will be shortlisted for consideration by the committee in October 2007.

See also

• Press release (30 April 2007)
• Seeding Drug Discovery initiative

External links

• GlaxoSmithKline