Summit Therapeutics PLC (LON:SUMM) reckons it might have found “multiple” new ways to attack and kill hospital-acquired superbugs such as MRSA.
New treatments for the ESKAPE – Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacter spp. – pathogens are needed as they become increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics.
WATCH: Summit Therapeutics sees a bright future for its antibiotics programmes
Using its Discuva platform, Summit said it had identified genes which are essential for these pathogens to survive, information which it will use to try to develop new drug candidates.
Several of these targets are now the focus of Summit’s drug development programmes, with the platform having already discovered potential new mechanism antibiotics against them.
“At the core of our innovation is our powerful Discuva Platform,” said chief executive Glyn Edwards.
“The platform allows us to uncover possible new ways to combat the potentially deadly ESKAPE pathogens.
“We can then aim to exploit this knowledge through the discovery and development of targeted new mechanism antibiotics.”
Shares were up 2% to 38.3p in early afternoon trading.