Antifungals in the cloud

With its first, acquired, molecule now in Phase II, Cidara Therapeutics Inc. is turning to its home-grown platform to build its preclinical pipeline. The company is borrowing a strategy from cancer immunotherapy to tackle serious fungal, bacterial and viral infections by using bispecific molecules to concentrate immune cells at the site of infection.

Cidara's platform - dubbed Cloudbreak - designs bifunctional small and large molecules that bind a pathogenic target with one end and attract and activate immune cells with the other. Much like in immuno-oncology, the goal is to overcome resistance mechanisms and redirect a patient's immune cells to the source of the harm...