Novacta achieves first milestone for new C. difficile Infection treatment

Rainbow Seed Fund investment Novacta Therapeutics, the anti-infectives development arm of Novacta Biotech, has successfully achieved the first milestone in a strategic translational award received from the Wellcome Trust to develop a new drug to treat Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infections.

The achievement of this significant milestone triggers the second tranche of a £3.5m award granted in January 2008. Novacta will enter the selected drug candidate NVB302 into formal preclinical development. The end goal is for Novacta to progress the programme to human clinical studies.

C. difficile infections (CDIs) are a growing and serious problem, associated with twice as many deaths in UK hospitals last year as MRSA. Cases of CDIs, which occur in the lower digestive tract, rose by 22% in the past year and affected more than 15,500 people over 65 in the first quarter of 2007. New anti-infective drugs are needed to target C. difficile without depleting other beneficial bacteria in the gut.

Novacta is developing novel, naturally-derived products known as "lantibiotics" as first-in-class drugs for treating hospital acquired infections caused by C. difficile. Early preclinical data indicate that the product shows promise as an effective treatment by acting selectively to kill C. difficile with less disturbance of normal gut bacteria than with existing drugs, predicting that the drug has a good recurrence prognosis.

Recurrence of the disease is the central problem to any C. difficile anti-bacterial therapy.