PRODUCT PIPELINE
Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) HP Antibody
Indication
S. aureus related infections are a major health concern in hospitals and communities all over the world. With ever increasing reports of antibiotic resistance among isolates, these infections pose a serious challenge to the healthcare system. Hospital-acquired and community-acquired infections can occur in otherwise healthy individuals, although immunocompromised patients or newborns with under-developed immune system can display an increased susceptibility.
Key Staphylococcus aureus Facts
- CDC estimates that there are about two million hospital-acquired infections each year leading to 90,000 deaths. S. aureus is one of the three leading causes of these infections
- S. aureus bacteremia has a mortality rate of 11-43%
- There has been increasing multi-drug resistance among S. aureus isolates and now over 50% of S. aureus strains are methicillin resistant (MRSA)
- From 1999-2000, over 125,000 hospitalizations with MRSA were recorded
- MRSA incidence is also increasing in community-acquired infections
Elusys is currently developing a Heteropolymer (HP) antibody based drug to combat S. aureus infections. The target population for this drug (ETI-211) will be patients with positive S. aureus blood cultures, infection-prone patients such as HIV positive patients, cancer patients, and other immunocompromised individuals.
Product
ETI-211 consists of an antibody to CR1, a receptor on red blood cells, cross-linked to an antibody to S. aureus. ETI-211 is designed to bind and clear the majority of S. aureus strains from the blood stream. The drug will be effective against antibiotic resistant strains including MRSA. Preclinical studies have yielded very encouraging results to date.
Preclinical Studies
Elusys has evaluated the ability of ETI-211 as well as other heteropolymers that bind S. aureus to improve survival in mice injected with lethal doses of S. aureus. Some of these studies were presented at the 45th ICAAC Meeting held in December of 2005. More recently, Intraperitoneal and kidney infection models have been developed to further study HP efficacy. Recent studies using a mouse model of intraperitoneal bacterial infection have demonstrated that mice given a single dose of ETI-211 show on average a 30 – 50% increase in survival over controls when challenged with antibiotic resistant S. aureus. In addition, ETI-211 provides significant reduction in organ burden in a kidney infection model.
Development Plan
Elusys has a well-defined plan for the development of ETI-211 for therapeutic use in humans. The preclinical studies for ETI-211 are nearing completion and we are in the process of developing a scaled-up process for bulk production of the HP antibody drug. It is our belief that a broad array of infectious diseases can be effectively prevented and/or treated with the heteropolymer antibody technology.