More than 30 European universities and companies are joining forces in a 6 year programme funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) to develop novel antibiotics.
The initiative is led by GlaxoSmithKline and Uppsala University. The novel antibiotics are being developed against Gram-negative pathogens in a project called ENABLE (European Gram Negative Antibacterial Engine). The ENABLE project is the third within the ND4BB (New Drugs for Bad Bugs) series, a series of projects to target the bottlenecks in the development and effective use of novel antibiotics. The ENABLE project spans 13 countries and brings together 32 partners with the mission to establish a significant anti-bacterial drug discovery platform for the progression of research programmes through discovery and Phase 1 clinical trials, states Uppsala University in a press release. A preliminary portfolio of programmes will be expanded through open calls outside the consortium to create a full development pipeline, with the ultimate goal to deliver at least one novel anti-bacterial candidate against gram negative infections into Phase 2 clinical trials by 2019.
