Monday, November 5, 2007

Superbug battle

By Ryan McBride

A deadly "superbug" that defies antibiotics has gained national attention lately, and two Massachusetts life sciences firms are advancing new weapons to do battle against the lethal bacteria.

After years of silence, Cambridge startup Intelligent Medical Devices Inc. reports it has raised a total of $15 million to develop technology to design tests that can detect the superbug and other pathogens. Also last week, Boston's Paratek Pharmaceuticals Inc. revealed it had raised the first part of a $40 million financing to advance antibiotics to treat infections linked to the bacteria.

The superbug, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), made national headlines last month because of its role in the death of a Virginia teen. The stubborn bacteria caused nearly 19,000 U.S. deaths in 2005 -- much more than in years past, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bacteria most often infects people in hospitals.

Firms with new technologies to combat the lethal pathogens could capitalize on multibillion-dollar markets for antibacterial products. The bacteria, unlike normal staph, are immune to many antibiotics and carry genetic traits that make them difficult to detect with existing diagnostics.

"This is why we are doing what we are doing," said Alice Jacobs, chief executive of Intelligent Medical Devices. "The more complex the pathogen, the more effective our technologies are for designing tests (to detect it)."

Jacobs' company has developed software that analyzes massive amounts of genetic code on such pathogens as the superbug to help scientists make molecular tests. The firm has tested its software with the lethal bacteria, she said, and has been on the hunt for corporate partners to license the technology to develop a diagnostic test for the pathogen.

"(The superbug) is an important target for us," Jacobs said. With the partnership strategy, the firm hopes other companies use its software to develop diagnostics for many pathogens.

Until recently, Intelligent Medical Devices had avoided public exposure because it had not completed validation studies with third parties such as Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, Jacobs said. But angel investors have been backing the firm quietly since it launched in 2000. The company closed a $5 million Series D round of financing from angels in September, she said, bringing the total amount the firm has raised from angel backers to $15 million.

Andrew Onderdonk, a pathologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said his concern is that resistant staph bacteria have begun to replace the treatable strains that people carry in their systems. He has tested Intelligent Medical Devices' technology with other pathogens, he said, and believes the firm could design an effective test for the bacteria.

On the treatment front, Paratek Pharmaceuticals expects to launch within two to three years a new antibiotic designed to overcome the resistances in superbug-related infections, said Thomas Bigger, the firm's president and CEO.

This month the firm closed the first $22 million of a $40 million private financing, primarily to advance its lead antibiotic into Phase 3 clinical trials next year. The antibiotic is intended to treat lethal skin infections and pneumonia often caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

"No one could have predicted that there would be this sudden interest in MRSA (superbug)," said Bigger. "We've known it for years."

New Jersey drug giant Merck & Co. Inc. has licensed a different antibiotic from Paratek, due to the growing resistance to existing antibiotics of some forms of bacteria, such as the superbug, Bigger said. The antibiotic Merck licensed is slated to enter Phase 1 trials in 2008 for the treatment of infections contracted outside of hospitals.

The annual U.S. market for antibiotics to treat infections from hospitals is between $5 billion and $6 billion, Bigger said. And the yearly market for drugs to treat community-acquired infections is about twice as large in the United States.

Meantime, medical experts believe the best defense against the superbug is to take measures to stay clear of the fatal bacteria -- which is good news for local developers of disinfectants.

"The challenge for hospitals is that they know the techniques for infection control, but they need to ensure" that those measures are taken, said Paula Griswold, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors, a nonprofit group in Burlington.