Boody Elashry

The bacteria methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can cause life-threatening infections of the skin, bones, and bloodstream. The number of hospitalizations for MRSA has increased markedly over the last several years. The intravenous antibiotic vancomycin has been the final line of defense against MRSA, but bacteria relentlessly mutate into resistant forms. The number of infections that don’t respond to treatment with vancomycin is on the rise, and annual U.S. deaths from MRSA infection now number more than 18,000 — greater than the annual deaths from AIDS.
Oritavancin is one of a group of new antibiotics designed to combat serious, multi-drug-resistant infections, such as MRSA. The drug is being developed by Targanta Therapeutics, which recently submitted a New Drug Application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, after completing 19 clinical trials and gathering data on 2,100 individuals. Targanta’s CEO, Mark Leuchtenberger, says that oritavancin has had at least $300 million invested in it already, and it will take hundreds of millions more to usher it through regulatory approval, establish manufacturing, build a sales force, and market it. But all that investment has the potential to save thousands of lives.