Shionogi launches Fetcroja in the UK for aerobic Gram-negative bacteria infections
pharmafile | September 15, 2020 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |
Shionogi has announced the launch of its new antibiotic in the UK for the treatment of infections due to aerobic Gram-negative bacteria in patients over 18 with limited treatment options.
The UK is the first country to launch Fetcroja (cefiderocol), which is the first treatment to provide coverage against all Gram-negative pathogens that the World Health Organization feels are a critical priority.
The approval was based on data from three clinical studies supporting its use in complicated urinary tract infections, hospital-acquired pneumonia, ventilator-associated pneumonia, and bloodstream infections including sepsis and patients with bacteraemia, showing potent in vitro activity.
Jonathan Osborne, General Manager of Shionogi UK, said: “We are delighted to announce the launch of cefiderocol in the UK, an important milestone which demonstrates Shionogi’s ongoing commitment to develop novel medicines in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. Cefiderocol can now be used to treat some of the most life-threatening infections in patients for whom there are limited or no alternative treatment options.”
Treatments like Fectcroja also help address antimicrobial resistance which causes 25,000 deaths in the EU and over 5,000 in the UK every year due to infections with multidrug-resistant bacteria. Gram-negative bacteria are often associated with a high mortality rate, and if no action is taken to discover more new antibiotic compounds, antibiotic resistance is predicted to kill 10 million people every year globally by 2050 at a cost of $100 trillion.
Professor Peter Hawkey of the Institute of Microbiology and Infection, College of Medical and Dental Sciences commented on the launch: “Antimicrobial resistance is a major global health threat that is only set to get worse if action is not taken, and new and effective antibiotics are urgently needed to address this problem. Cefiderocol has a novel mechanism of entry through the cell’s outer membrane of Gram-negative pathogens by using the bacteria’s own iron uptake system to gain cell entry, acting like a ‘Trojan horse’. This means it has activity against some of the most difficult-to-treat Gram-negative infections.”
Conor Kavanagh
