The Rise in Antibiotic Resistance and How Startups Including Acurx Pharmaceuticals Are Fighting It
June 6, 2022 Joel Gonzalez
What is Antibiotic resistance and why is it such a big problem?
Antibiotic resistance is the issue of bacteria gaining the ability to counteract the effects of antibiotics, which are drugs used to impede the growth of bacteria and stop the spread of disease within the body. This resistance has been a growing issue for the healthcare industry over the past decade and remains so now as bacteria continue to evolve, while our antibiotics do not. In fact, bacteria have been developing their own genes to combat against antibiotics, hence the term antibiotic resistance. The real question is, what are companies doing now
to fight against this? Startups such as Acurx Pharmaceuticals have begun working on novel methods to combat this continued rise
in resistance.
Acurx Pharmaceuticals and their mission
Acurx Pharmaceuticals is a biotech startup, founded by David P. Lucci in 2017, focused on creating a new generation of antibiotics in hopes of defeating one of the most dangerous pathogens, Clostridium difficile (C. diff). C. diff is a bacteria that causes inflammation in the colon after infection with symptoms including loss of appetite, weight loss, abdominal pain, fever, and nausea. This is a very dangerous
bacterium due to its worldwide prevalence; in fact, “C. diff has become the most common healthcare-associated infection in the United States and the most frequent hospital-acquired intestinal infection in Europe and worldwide” which justifies the intense efforts that Acurx Pharmaceuticals are pursuing to fight it (Peng et al, 2017). Acurx pharmaceutical is trying to develop a new antibiotic that has a higher efficacy rate against C. diff compared to current antibiotics used for treatment. Currently, their top antibiotic against C. diff would be Ibezapolstat, “a novel DNA polymerase IIIC inhibitor with in vitro activity against C. difficile,” and works by preventing DNA polymerase IIIC, an enzyme that C. diff has that allows it to replicate DNA, from binding with the substrate that allows DNA replication to occur. The inhibition of this enzyme, causes the C. diff bacteria to not be able to initiate more DNA synthesis, preventing the bacteria’s replication and
eventually causing its death. (Garey et al, 2020). This is revolutionizing because there is now an antibiotic, which is still undergoing clinical trials, that has been shown to be very efficient so far. Vancomycin, the current antibiotic used for treatment against infections caused by C.
diff, has been somewhat effective against illnesses caused by C. diff; however, Ibezapolstat been shown to be safe and effective through experimentation and clinical trials and is comparable to the current method of treatment (Gary et al, 2020). This work of Acurx pharmaceuticals is already monumental and they’ve only been around for 5 years.
What does the future hold for us?
With startups such as Acurx pharmaceuticals working on innovative projects that can help solve the issue of antibiotic resistance, there is hope for the future of fighting bacterial disease. Bacteria that have had perpetual contact with antibiotics are evolving and developing genes to make antibiotics inefficient so humans must do the same thing: help the antibiotics we use also evolve. By improving our drugs, we will help minimize antibiotic resistance and the amount of hospitalizations caused by antibiotics resistance. Thus, we need to support these startups or else we may regress back to how life was before antibiotics where people were dying in high numbers because of
bacterial infections. We need to encourage support from everyone for these startups because they are making sure we win this
war against bacteria.
Antibiotic resistance is the issue of bacteria gaining the ability to counteract the effects of antibiotics, which are drugs used to impede the growth of bacteria and stop the spread of disease within the body. This resistance has been a growing issue for the healthcare industry over the past decade and remains so now as bacteria continue to evolve, while our antibiotics do not. In fact, bacteria have been developing their own genes to combat against antibiotics, hence the term antibiotic resistance. The real question is, what are companies doing now
to fight against this? Startups such as Acurx Pharmaceuticals have begun working on novel methods to combat this continued rise
in resistance.
Acurx Pharmaceuticals and their mission
Acurx Pharmaceuticals is a biotech startup, founded by David P. Lucci in 2017, focused on creating a new generation of antibiotics in hopes of defeating one of the most dangerous pathogens, Clostridium difficile (C. diff). C. diff is a bacteria that causes inflammation in the colon after infection with symptoms including loss of appetite, weight loss, abdominal pain, fever, and nausea. This is a very dangerous
bacterium due to its worldwide prevalence; in fact, “C. diff has become the most common healthcare-associated infection in the United States and the most frequent hospital-acquired intestinal infection in Europe and worldwide” which justifies the intense efforts that Acurx Pharmaceuticals are pursuing to fight it (Peng et al, 2017). Acurx pharmaceutical is trying to develop a new antibiotic that has a higher efficacy rate against C. diff compared to current antibiotics used for treatment. Currently, their top antibiotic against C. diff would be Ibezapolstat, “a novel DNA polymerase IIIC inhibitor with in vitro activity against C. difficile,” and works by preventing DNA polymerase IIIC, an enzyme that C. diff has that allows it to replicate DNA, from binding with the substrate that allows DNA replication to occur. The inhibition of this enzyme, causes the C. diff bacteria to not be able to initiate more DNA synthesis, preventing the bacteria’s replication and
eventually causing its death. (Garey et al, 2020). This is revolutionizing because there is now an antibiotic, which is still undergoing clinical trials, that has been shown to be very efficient so far. Vancomycin, the current antibiotic used for treatment against infections caused by C.
diff, has been somewhat effective against illnesses caused by C. diff; however, Ibezapolstat been shown to be safe and effective through experimentation and clinical trials and is comparable to the current method of treatment (Gary et al, 2020). This work of Acurx pharmaceuticals is already monumental and they’ve only been around for 5 years.
What does the future hold for us?
With startups such as Acurx pharmaceuticals working on innovative projects that can help solve the issue of antibiotic resistance, there is hope for the future of fighting bacterial disease. Bacteria that have had perpetual contact with antibiotics are evolving and developing genes to make antibiotics inefficient so humans must do the same thing: help the antibiotics we use also evolve. By improving our drugs, we will help minimize antibiotic resistance and the amount of hospitalizations caused by antibiotics resistance. Thus, we need to support these startups or else we may regress back to how life was before antibiotics where people were dying in high numbers because of
bacterial infections. We need to encourage support from everyone for these startups because they are making sure we win this
war against bacteria.