New tools to streamline antibiotic development
Bacteria and other microbes are developing the ability to defeat the drugs designed to kill them. This makes diseases more difficult to treat and increases the risk of severe illness and even death. New antibiotics are a vital ally in the battle against antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which has become an urgent public health threat directly responsible for at least 1.27 million deaths worldwide. We need tools that can smooth the path of new drug development, tools that developers can use to assess the effectiveness of their new antibacterial treatments. Launched in November 2019, the EU-funded COMBINE project is developing a standardised in vivo pneumonia model to test small-molecule antibiotics. The model, which has the potential to streamline new antibiotic testing and development, is currently undergoing evaluation.
Towards a standardised protocol
COMBINE is carrying out the validation study together with four leading players in the antibiotics industry: CARB-X, CAIRD, iiCON and Pharmacology Discovery Services. As stated in a ‘EurekAlert!’ news release, the collaboration will enable key stakeholders to share their data and expertise, strengthening the validation study for the in vivo pneumonia model through testing by multiple organisations. “This is part of an ongoing effort to develop a standardised protocol for the in vivo pneumonia model. Data from the model will also support the establishment of a reference strain bank of clinically relevant, well-characterized Gram-negative strains,” reports the news item. COMBINE is furthermore using mathematical modelling methods to help bridge the gap between preclinical data and clinical outcomes. The work on the pneumonia model is being led by a team at COMBINE project partner Statens Serum Institut in Denmark. The in vivo experiments will be performed at the Danish partner’s site and at two other partner sites – Paul-Ehrlich-Institut (Germany) and GSK (United Kingdom) – to see whether the results are reproducible in different labs. “I am pleased that the protocol that COMBINE has developed for the standard pneumonia model works well with the isolates and antibiotics tested so far,” states Prof. Lena Friberg of COMBINE project coordinator Uppsala University, Sweden. “Further studies are now in progress to fully characterise the model, and we look forward to making the protocol available to the AMR community.” COMBINE (Collaboration for Prevention and Treatment of MDR Bacterial Infections) is supported by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a partnership between the European Union and the European pharmaceutical industry. It also plays a coordinating role in the IMI’s AMR Accelerator, a programme that brings together universities, pharmaceutical companies, research organisations, and small and medium-sized companies to develop new tools and treatments to fight drug-resistant pathogens. “We are excited to bring standardised tools to those working to fill the pipeline with new antibiotics, and proud to be part of a community of stakeholders working together to combat antimicrobial resistance,” remarks Uppsala University Prof. Anders Karlén. For more information, please see: COMBINE project web page
Keywords
COMBINE, antibiotic, antimicrobial resistance, AMR, pneumonia, microbe, bacteria, drug