Deinove to licence antibiotic leads form RedX Pharma

Redx Pharma said it wanted to licence its programme because the company decided to put its development focus on cancer and fibrosis candidates. Deinove indicated that Redx Pharma’s preclinical anti-infective portfolio would complement its own early-stage pipleline of naturally-derived compounds, which is driven forward within the AGIR (Antibiotics Against Resistant Infectious Germs) project, which has been granted €10.4m by BPI France. 

In 2016, Redx pharma presented promising preclinical results of three „novel“ topoisomerase IV, topoisomerase II and DNA gyrase blockers in antibiotic-resistant E. coli  and Acinetobacter baumanii strains, whose binding sites are adjacent to the binding site of quinolones and showed no cross-resistance to them. According to Redx, which participated in the €85m ENABLE programme of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and got a €1m fund from the CARB-X, the novel drug group significantly decreased infection levels against the multi-drug resistant Gram-negative bacterial strains when compared with tigecycline, a current drug-of-last-resort used in treating antibiotic resistant bacteria while triggering only few mutations.. 

The novel bacterial topoisomerase inhibitors (NBTI) complement Deinove’s antibiotics screening programme in rare bacteria. According to Deinove, which did not disclose any financial details of the option agreement, the to-be licenced NBTI programme only covers those candidates targeting bacterial type II topoisomerase. Currently, it is undergoing  lead optimisation and in vivo evaluation confirming its potential in terms of both efficacy and safety. Deinove said, it would continue the optimisation and selection work for a possible regulatory preclinical entry of one or more molecules.

Deinove now has nine months to confirm its interest in this series of molecules and exercise the option. The transaction includes an upfront payment and a supplement to the exercise of the option.