New firm PolyMedix presents TB pipeline

The USA's PolyMedix, an emerging biotechnology company developing acute care products for infectious diseases and acute cardiovascular disorders based on biomimetics, presented data on its pipeline tuberculosis treatments at the New Directions in AIDS Treatment Research Policy and Care Symposium in New York.

The firm presented preclinical in vitro data describing the activity of a variety of PolyMedix' novel small-molecule defensin mimetic antibiotic compounds against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The firm's lead antibiotic product candidate, PMX-30063, with an initial planned indication to broadly treat Staph infections, is currently undergoing Phase I clinical testing.

PolyMedix' antibiotic small-molecule mimetics of human host-defense proteins - including PMX-30063 - are thought to have a different mechanism of action from current antibiotic drugs, which is intended to make bacterial resistance unlikely to develop. These compounds are to be indicated as rapidly acting antibiotics for serious systemic and local infections. Also, the firm's heptagonist compounds, including PMX-60056, reverse the activity of both standard heparin and low molecular weight heparins, with the goal of developing an antagonist drug that is safer and easier to use than the currently accepted standard-of-care.