An investigational, novel oral antibiotic with greater selectivity than vancomycin, metronidazole, and even fidaxomicin may offer improved protection of healthy gut bacteria during the treatment of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), according to ongoing research.
"CDI treatment has historically been dominated by metronidazole and vancomycin," said Katherine Johnson, DO, from the Western Infectious Disease Consultants, PC, in Denver, Colorado. However, these broad-spectrum drugs negatively affect healthy bacteria in the gut and increase the risk of CDI recurrence.
This is also a problem for drugs in the CDI antibiotic pipeline; many candidate drugs have failed because of their broad-spectrum activity, she added during a session at the Peggy Lillis Foundation 2022 National C diff Advocacy Summit.
"An ideal CDI therapy would be a very narrow-spectrum antibiotic that has a minimal effect on normal gut bacteria," she said.
Johnson is currently working on a phase 2 clinical trial that is evaluating the novel antibiotic, dubbed CRS3123, for the treatment of primary CDI and first-recurrence CDI. The investigational agent targets and inhibits a form of the methionyl tRNA synthetase enzyme, which is strictly required for protein biosynthesis in C difficile and is therefore an ideal target for treatment of primary and recurrent CDI.
In her session, Johnson reported that CRS3123 inhibits the damaging toxins produced by
