BioCentury
ARTICLE | Politics & Policy

IMI expanding ND4BB

December 19, 2012 2:15 AM UTC

Europe's Innovative Medicines Initiative is expanding its NewDrugs4BadBugs (ND4BB) initiative, which was launched in May to support the development of new antibiotics. The details came in IMI's eighth call for proposals to fund public-private partnerships addressing three topics, including antimicrobial resistance. IMI is now seeking to fund projects focused on innovative trial design and clinical drug development of MEDI4893, a mAb against Staphylococcus aureus alpha toxin in development by the MedImmune LLC unit of AstraZeneca plc (LSE:AZN; NYSE:AZN). A Phase Ib/IIa trial of MEDI4893 is slated to start by 4Q14 (see BioCentury, June 4).

As part of the ND4BB expansion, IMI said it plans to fund "a fully functional antibacterial drug discovery unit" to develop drugs to treat Gram-negative bacterial infections. The compounds will be sourced from public and private partners and will include hit-to-lead and lead-to-development stage programs. IMI said that GlaxoSmithKline plc (LSE:GSK; NYSE:GSK) and Sanofi (Euronext:SAN; NYSE:SNY) have both agreed to share portions of their discovery portfolio and will begin working on lead optimization of novel topoisomerase inhibitors. ...