NEW HAVEN, Conn., Dec. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel drugs for the treatment of serious multi-drug-resistant infections announced today it has entered into a collaborative research agreement with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
"Treating infections that are resistant to the antibiotics currently available to us has become increasingly challenging," Dr. Hooper said. "We are interested to learn more about the unusual properties of this specific drug relative to other members of its class and its potential effect on controlling difficult and dangerous infections."
"The opportunity to work with Dr. David Hooper on the in vivo mechanism of action of delafloxacin is a very important extension of the research we have done here at Rib-X," said Susan Froshauer, Ph.D., Rib-X's President and CEO. "Dr. Hooper is a well-known expert on fluoroquinolones and this collaboration will demonstrate the potential for delafloxacin to take its place in the arsenal of drugs for battling recalcitrant quinolone-resistant infections."
About Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a product-driven small molecule drug discovery and development company focused on the structure-based design of new classes of antibiotics. The Company currently has two drug candidates: delafloxacin, which is ready to enter Phase 3 clinical trials, and radezolid, whose oral form has been tested for safety and efficacy in two Phase 2 trials. Delafloxacin is a broad-spectrum fluoroquinolone with potent activity against quinolone-resistant Gram-positive bacteria, including methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Radezolid, a new oxazolidione discovered by Rib-X using its structure-based drug design approach, is an oral/IV agent for the treatment of serious multi-drug-resistant infections. The Company also has two other structure-based discovery programs, Rx-04 and Rx-02. The Rch-04 discovery program is developing novel classes of antibiotics active against multi-drug resistant Gram-negative bacteria. The Rx-02 discovery program is focused on developing an IV/oral macrolide active against MRSA, multidrug-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae, and S. pyogenes. Rib-X's underlying drug discovery engine capitalizes on its proprietary high-resolution crystal structure of the ribosome, which performs an essential role in protein synthesis. Many known, commercially valuable antibiotics exert their effects by binding to the bacterial ribosome. The Company's integrated research strategy, which combines state-of-the-art, proprietary computational analysis, X-ray crystallography, medicinal chemistry, microbiology and biochemistry, allows it to rapidly synthesize new agents designed to avoid typical antibiotic resistance mechanisms.
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