Destiny Pharma secures £1.6m grant to fight ‘superbugs’ and antimicrobial resistance
pharmafile | January 29, 2019 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development | Destiny Pharma, antimicrobial resistance, pharma
UK biotech Destiny Pharma has secured £1.6 million in funding to further its research into the prevention and elimination of life-threatening “superbugs” without contributing to the threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), it has emerged.
The grant was supplied by a collaboration established as part of the UK-China AMR fund, which was itself set up by Innovate UK and the Department of Health and Social Care with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.
The sum will help to fund a two-year project which will further Destiny’s development of its XF drugs in the prevention and treatment of superbugs without AMR, in partnership with Cardiff University’s School of Dentistry and College of Biomedical and Life Sciences and a team at Tianjin Medical University in China.
“The Microbial Diseases research group at Cardiff University is delighted to bring its expertise to this exciting project,” commented Professor David Williams who will lead the team at Cardiff University. “The widespread emergence of antimicrobial resistance in recent years has highlighted the need for alternative and effective antimicrobial agents. We, therefore, feel that the XF drug platform from Destiny Pharma provides timely and significant tools in our armoury against antimicrobial resistance.”
Destiny Pharma CEO Neil Clark also remarked: “The research will investigate the utility of our XF drug platform, especially in the treatment of dermal and ocular infections. We are hopeful this collaboration may help us identify additional clinical candidates that are safe, effective and with a significantly reduced level of antimicrobial resistance. Destiny Pharma is planning to complete Phase 2 trials in its lead XF programme, XF-73, in 2019 and is looking forward to identifying additional, novel drug candidates through this exciting UK-China collaboration. Destiny Pharma already has a China regional collaboration with our investor, China Medical Systems, and we are delighted to expand our strong connections in this significant market.”
Matt Fellows
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