Much Adieu about Nothing: MRSA Found at Public Beaches in Washington State

The 2009 Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) is currently taking place in San Francisco. For those of you who may not know ICAAC, is an annual meeting mainly attended by infectious disease physicians and researchers where the latest and most cutting edge research on infectious agents is reported. Things must have been a little slow at this year’s meeting (except for H1N1 of course) which led the newswires to pick up a story about the isolation of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus  (MRSA) at public beaches in Washington State. While MRSA infections are certainly a public health concern, particularly among infants, older adults and immunocompromised individuals finding MRSA at public beaches isn’t particularly surprising nor newsworthy.

S. aureus is an opportunistic pathogen that isn't particularly virulent and is incapable of causing disease unless it is accidentally introduced into a wound, surgical incision or similar environment. In humans, the bacterium colonizes mainly the nasal passages, but it may be regularly found in most other anatomical locales, including the skin, oral cavity and gastrointestinal tract. Epidemiological studies have demonstrated that over 70% of people transiently carry S. aureus in their nasal passages at one time or another in their lives. This means that S. aureus is very common and ubiquitous in human populations. Consequently, I wasn’t surprised when I learned that Seattle researchers had isolated S. aureus at public beaches in Washington State. Nor was I shocked to learn that some of the isolates were MRSA strains!  After all, the incidence of methicillin-resistant S. aureus has been steadily increasing in the US and elsewhere for the past 20 years. And, healthy people who carry MRSA (and regularly shed it from their bodies) do like to go to beach and lay in the sand when the weather is warm. That said, I would have flabbergasted if the researchers didn't isolate MRSA from the beach sand samples that they surveyed. As an aside, I want to let my readers know that I isolated S. aureus from a soil sample while an undergraduate microbiology  major at Cornell University. Finally, while some MRSA infections can be fatal, those that are diagnosed correctly and early are usually easy to eliminate with conventional antibiotic regimens.

Because the work mentioned in the ICAAC press release hasn’t been published, it is  difficult to evaluate the results and implications of the study's findings.  Nevertheless, I don’t think it was prudent for the scientists who conducted the research to issue a press release about finding MRSA at public beaches—especially when the American public is already jittery about infectious agents like H1N1. If the authors’ intent was to make a big splash (pun intended) by mentioning the “dreaded MRSA” in their press release, they were successful—the story is all over the news. However, in my opinion, we are obliged as scientists to accurately inform the lay public about important scientific and public health issues—not play into its worse fears and misconceptions about them.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!

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Improving Public Awareness of Science: Now That's What I'm Talking About!

Several weeks ago, I blogged about a growing need to improve the American public’s perception and understanding of the life sciences if the US wants to remain competitive in science and technology. Much to my delight, there was an article this Sunday’s NY Times entitled “Microbes R Us” which explores the evolutionary relationship with bacteria and humans. It was written by Dr. Olivia Judson an evolutionary biologist and author of “Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex,” which was made into a three part television program.

While the evolutionary relationship between bacteria and humans isn’t as titillating as the biology of sex, the article sheds light on the importance of bacteria and how genetic changes in bacteria that normally inhabit the human intestinal track can have a positive impact on human nutrition and health. Many lay people believe that bacteria are “bad” because certain species can cause serious and potentially life threatening diseases. However, the benefits, advantages and uses of bacteria e.g., to make food, antibiotics and other medicines, far outweigh their negative impact on society. 

Articles like the one written by Ms. Judson, offer the public unqique insights into  the amazing and often fascinating world of microbiology. I hope that a few aspiring young scientists read the article and tell all their friends about it!

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Reading!!!!!!

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Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus: A Growing Link between MRSA Infections and Pigs

That methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is in the news again is not surprising. However, to my knowledge, Nicholas Kristof‘s article in today’s New York Times may be the first Op-Ed piece written by a non-scientist about the growing threat and seriousness of MRSA infections. Mr. Kristof apparently became aware of MRSA when he was contacted by Tom Anderson, MD, a Camden, Indiana physician who was experiencing “phenomenal levels of MRSA infections" in his community.

Beginning in the early 1990s, Dr Anderson noticed a rapidly rising incidence in the number of community acquired skin infections caused by MRSA among his patients. Most of Dr Anderson’s patients were swine farmers—the predominant industry in Camden. At first puzzled by the growing incidences of MRSA outbreaks, Dr. Anderson began to suspect that his patient’s pigs may be the source of growing number of cases of MRSA skin infections. He was reluctant to alert public health officials about his suspicions because any hint livestock-related health issues might jeopardize the livelihood of many of his neighbors and friends. By last fall, however, Camden’s MRSA epidemic had grown so large that Dr. Anderson could no longer remain silent. Rather than alert the authorities himself, he decided to invite Mr. Kristof, an investigative reporter, to visit him in Camden and break the story. Unfortunately, before Mr. Kristof could visit, Dr. Anderson died abruptly at age 54. There was no autopsy, but a blood test suggested he may have died from a heart attack or aneurysm. And—this is where the story gets interesting—a recent Dutch study has linked porcine MRSA isolates to a case of human endocarditis. Dr. Anderson had himself suffered at least three bouts of MRSA infections.

In another Dutch study conducted in 2004, MRSA strain ST398 (which caused the endocarditis in the more recent study) was isolated from three family members, three farm workers and 8 of 10 pigs from a single farm. Since then, strain ST398 has spread rapidly through the Netherlands — especially in swine-producing areas— and pig farmers there are 760 times more likely than the general population to carry MRSA. More recently, a study conducted by public health officials in Ontario, Canada showed that 20% of pig farmers were colonized by strains of MRSA genetically identical to those isolated from European pigs. Finally, a 2008 study conducted in Iowa, reported that strain ST398 was isolated from 45 percent of pig farmers and 49 percent of hogs that were tested. Together, these studies suggest that colonization of swine by MRSA and pig farmers is very common and that swine (and possibly other agricultural animals) could become an important reservoir for strains of MRSA.

While not conclusive, most infectious diseases experts believe that the emergence of MRSA and antibiotic resistant bacteria can be directly linked to the widespread and rampant use of antibiotics as growth enhancers in livestock feed. Despite the alarming emergence of multiple antibiotic resistance bacteria, livestock producers in the US and elsewhere continue to add antibiotics to livestock feeds. This led Mr. Kristof to lament that “we as a nation have moved to a model of agriculture that produces cheap bacon but risks the health of all of us.” Not surprisingly, as is frequently the case, big business has chosen to place profits before the health and safety of society.

Until next time...

 

Good Luck and Good Reading (look for Mr. Kristof’s Sunday column on the emergence of antibiotic resistant "superbugs")

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In Search of New Antibiotics

A team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (my alma mater) genetically engineered a strain of Streptomyces platensis to overproduce the antibiotics platensimycin and platencin. They accomplished this by deleting a regulatory gene (ptmR1, whichencodes a putative GntR-like transcriptional regulator) in the antibiotic synthetic pathway that controls production. The newly engineered strain has been reported to overproduce platensimycin and platencin with yieldsof 323 ± 29 mg/L and 255 ± 30 mg/L, respectively. This represents a 100-fold increase in the yields observed with corresponding S. platensis wild type strains.

Platensimycin is the first of a new class of natural product antibiotics (with a novel mode of action) to be discovered in the past 40 years.  It exhibits strong, broad-spectrum Gram-positive antibacterial activity by selectively inhibiting cellular lipid biosynthesis. Treatment with platensimycin eradicates Staphylococcus aureus infection in mice. Because of its unique mode of action, platensimycin shows no cross-resistance to other key antibiotic-resistant strains tested, including methicillin-resistant S. aureus, vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus and vancomycin-resistant enterococci.

Platencin, also a natural product, is chemically and biologically related but different from platensimycin. Like platensimycin, it exhibits a broad-spectrum Gram-positive antibacterial activity through inhibition of fatty acid biosynthesis. And, it doesn’t exhibit cross-resistance to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus, and vancomycin-resistant Enterococci. Moreover, platencin shows potent in vivo efficacy without any observed toxicity.

Both antibiotics show promise for commercialization. While we need new antibiotics, both platensimycin and platencin target only Gram positive bacteria. Infections caused by multiple drug resistant Gram negative bacteria are threatening to overtake those caused by Gram positive in the very near future. At present, to the best of my knowledge, there are no new antibiotics in the pipeline directed against multiple drug resistant Gram negative strains.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Antibiotic Hunting!!!!!!!!

Uh Oh, Here We Go: Another Grocery Chain Offers "Free Generic Antibiotics"

News Day reported today that Wegmans Food Markets, a grocer with 72 locations in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland is giving away “free generic antibiotics” for customers (with a prescription). Wegmans joins a growing list of supermarkets pharmacies including Giant Food and Publix that are giving free generic antibiotics to its customers.

I first learned about the “free generic antibiotic give away offers” several weeks ago after reading a post on the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Health Blog. I took the WSJ health blog to task for posting the story without editorial comment on the potentially dangerous practice of “hawking free antibiotics” to drive business at regional and nationwide grocery store pharmacies. Luckily, in today’s WSJ Health Blog post about the Wegmans program, the author (Sarah Rubenstein) did suggest that the practice may lead to unnecessary promotional  use of antibiotics.

As you all should know by now, we are in the midst of bacterial antibiotic-resistance epidemic. People are beginning to regularly die from bacterial infections that were easily treatable a decade ago. Ironically, we are slowly approaching the morbidity and mortality rates for bacterial infections that previously existed in the pre-penicillin era. Moreover, there are no new, orally bioavailable, broad spectrum antibiotics on the horizon. A lack of new antibiotics coupled with rapidly emerging resistance to extant ones is wreaking havoc on the healthcare system in both community and hospital settings.

The “free generic antibiotics” advertising and marketing programs concocted by Giant, Publix and Wegman’s are egregious examples of how a lack of or unwillingness to understand science poses a serious public health threat to all Americans. I have no doubt that the marketers who devised the give away programs have nary a clue about the relationship between antibiotic use and the emergence of antibiotic resistance strains of bacteria. Further, while physicians may be aware of increasing rates of antibiotic resistance, many are reluctant to not prescribe antibiotics to patients who request them. After all, these physicians are running a business and if they don’t write the script, the patient will take his/her business elsewhere. The potential public health implication of these free antibiotic programs begs the question: Why not give away generic ace inhibitors, generic statins or other generic medications whose profits margins are also negligible but don’t carry any public health risks?

Put simply, the promise of free generic antibiotics is a marketing strategy that is in my opinion, reckless, dangerous and may have serious public health implications in the future. Make no mistake about it, I am a capitalist but not when profits are placed before human lives.

Hat tip to the WSJ Health Blog

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (try antibiotic drug discovery—we need new ones)

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Another Antibiotic Discovery And Development Company Is Downsizing

Targanta Therapeutics, a Cambridge, MA-based biopharmaceutical company, announced that it will lay off 85 of its 115 employees or almost 75% of its workforce. The news follows the FDA’s rejection of its application for oritavancin, an antibiotic it is developing to treat infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other antibiotic resistant bacteria. The agency wants Targanta to conduct another Phase III clinical trial to further assess of oritavancin’s safety and efficacy.

The company estimates that the new clinical trial will cost about $20 million. Targanta CEO Mark Leuchtenberger said “We are no longer a pre-commercial company. We are back to being a Phase three company, and that requires us to right-size and to streamline our operations.”

Things are not going well for companies in the antibacterial drug discovery and development space. Late last month, FDA rejected Swiss-based Arpida’s NDA for iclaprim an antibiotic it was developing to treat complicated skin and soft infections caused by MRSA. Shortly after receiving the news, Arpida layed off roughly 72% of its employees and is down to about 30 employees like Targanta.

It is unfortunate that big pharma decided to abandon antibacterial discovery and development research about eight years ago. Consequently, development of  new, much-needed antibiotics has been relegated to financially-strapped, small biopharmaceutical companies whose likelihood of success is questionable.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!

FDA Delays Approval of Ceftobiprole to treat MRSA

U.S. regulators have delayed a decision on approval of an antibiotic from Johnson & Johnson and Basilea saying they need further audits of clinical sites, the two companies said on Wednesday.

Ceftobiprole, a broad-based spectrum antibiotic targeted mainly against infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), is Basilea's lead product and the news hit the Swiss biotech shares, which plummeted 27 percent.

In a so-called complete response letter on the drug's approval application, for complicated skin and skin structure infections, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it was unable to review the clinical data submitted with the NDA until issues of data integrity had been resolved. The FDA has asked J&J to conduct additional audit work of clinical investigator sites and to address specific questions related to site monitoring."

Ceftobiprole is approved in Canada and Switzerland and has been recommended for approval in the European Union. A new application in the United States is planned within a year.

Late last week, FDA rejected an NDA for another antibiotic, iclaprim, being developed by Arpida, another Swiss company. It has been a bad two weeks at FDA for approval of new antibiotics—drugs that we desperately need.

Until next time….

Happy Thanksgiving

 

Optimer's New Carbohydrate-Based Antibiotic May Be a Winner

Optimer, a San-Diego, CA-based biopharmaceutical company, reported positive Phase III clinical trial results for OPT-80, its lead treatment for Clostridium difficile gastroenteritis. C. difficile gastroenteritis is caused by exotoxins secreted by clostridia that have colonized the colon following prolonged antibiotic treatment for other bacterial infections. If left untreated, patients can die from a pseudo-membrane that forms in the colons of C. difficile-infected people. The incidence of C. difficile gastroenteritis has drastically increased over the past decade because of prolonged treatments with multiple antibiotics that are often necessary to eradicate infections caused by multiple drug resistant bacteria.

Historically, CHO-based drugs (with a few notably exceptions like heparin) have not fared well as therapeutic agents. To my knowledge, OPT-80 is the first synthetic carbohydrate (CHO)-based antibiotic to demonstrate anti-bacterial efficacy in a Phase III clinical trial. Having worked for Transcell Technologies (now defunct) and Alchemia,Pty—both of which attempted to develop CHO-based antibiotics—Optimer’s clinical success with OPT-80 is certainly noteworthy. I wish the company continued success in the future—mostly because I have always thought that carbohydrates would make good antibiotics!

 

Until next time…

 

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!

 

 

Honey as an Antibiotic?

As an undergraduate at Cornell, I took a course called "Bee Keeping" mostly because it had the reputation of being a  “gut” course (i.e., easy to ace) and I had a passing interest in entomological microbiology. To this day, I will tell you that it is one of the best courses that I have taken in my academic career. It was taught by a practicing bee keeper who maintained hives in Florida during the winter and in Ithaca during the summer (not surprisingly the course was taught in the Spring semester so that his bees could pollinate the local crops).

Not only did we learn a lot about honey bee biology and social insect behavior, we also learned a great deal about honey and its virtues (we even got to sample different types of honey from time to time). One of honey’s lesser known properties is that it is sterile. This is because honey is extremely hygroscopic and has high concentrations of fructose, thereby preventing the growth of bacteria. These properties led me to wonder in those days whether honey would be an effective antibiotic in certain situations. 

Over the next 30 years or so, I had all but forgotten about the possible use of honey as an antibacterial. Then, much to my surprise, I came across a recent Canadian study which suggests that honey may be useful to treat a variety of infections. Apparently, honey is surprisingly effective in treating bacterial biofilms which are increasingly implicated in the etiology of many chronic skin, mucosal and wound infections. Previous studies showed that honey is effective in wound healing. The researchers who conducted the study also suggested that a “honey rinse” might be effective for treating  "stubborn ear, nose and throat infections."

Interestingly, not all of the honey that was tested exhibited potent antibacterial properties. Canadian clover and buckwheat honey didn’t exhibit any antibacterial properties at all. This suggests that the plant nectars that the bees use to make honey might influence the antibiotic properties of various honeys. It is important to note that the results of these experiments are very preliminary and additional studies will definitely be required to support or refute the use of honey as an antibiotic. Nevertheless, I thought the results were exciting and worth mentioning.

Until next time….don't forget to eat your honey!

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (try beekeeping…its lucrative these days)!!!!!!

Some Tips to Reduce the Incidence of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

A friend of mine accidentally gashed his leg on an open dishwasher door and thought nothing of it for several weeks until he noticed that the wound wasn’t healing and it hurt really badly. He eventually went to the emergency room at a local, where the ER docs cultured the wound and sent him home with a prescription for oral antibiotics. The antibiotics stopped working several days later and he wound up in another local hospital–this time he was admitted and the spent the next 5 days on a variety of intravenous antibiotics. Despite the treatment (they could not find the right antibiotic combination at first because  they never recultured the wound) his leg turned black from his ankle to his knee and they almost had to amputate. He is back at home now and will be treated with a regimen of iv antibiotics for the next 6 weeks or so. I talked with him last week and I learned that his leg wound is still not completely healed and the infectious disease docs are worried!

My friend almost lost his leg because of a lack of understanding about bacterial infections and antibiotic resistant bacteria and— unfortunately— because of substandard wound care treatment. With this in mind, I am posting what I think are useful tips (from the June issue of the Mayo Clinic Women’s Health Source) about how to prevent, manage and treat wound infections to minimize the emergence and spread of multiple, antibiotic- resistant bacteria.

  • Wash your hands: This simple procedure, done properly, remains the best defense. Carry alcohol-based hand sanitizers for times when hand washing isn’t possible.
  • Keep personal items personal: Don’t share towels, soap, sheets, razors, clothing or athletic equipment.
  • Sanitize linens: If you have a cut or abrasion, wash towels and sheets with hot water and added bleach. Wash gym and athletic clothes after each use.
  • Get infections tested: If an infection requires treatment, ask your care provider to take a culture to confirm what bacteria are present before you are given an antibiotic. (Editor’s note: Unfortunately, this is no longer standard practice—most infections are treated empirically which is partly responsible for the increasing frequency of antibiotic resistant bacteria.) If you test positive for a Staphylococcus (Staph) infection, ask that a culture be tested specifically for MRSA in case you need a special antibiotic.
  • Use antibiotics appropriately: When you take antibiotics, take all doses even when you start feeling better. Don’t demand antibiotics for viral illnesses; antibiotics don’t work with viruses. Taking too many antibiotics over time could become a detriment because the medication’s effectiveness can be compromised by overuse.
  • Use antibacterial products sparingly: Antibacterial soaps and cleaning products probably don’t prevent infections at home and may make these products less effective in hospitals.
  • Take precautions in the hospital: Ask all hospital staff and visitors to wash their hands or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer before touching you. Ask care providers to wipe stethoscopes and other equipment with alcohol. Don’t set food or utensils directly on tables or beds. Make sure that intravenous tubes and catheters are inserted under sterile conditions.

I hope that these tips will help to keep you out of the hospital with potentially life-threatening, antibiotic resistant bacterial wound infections!

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!

Novartis Buys US-Based Antibiotic Discovery Company

Novartis announced today that it intends to purchase Malvern, PA-based Protez Pharmaceuticals for $400 million. Protez is developing a novel spectrum carbapenem antibiotic that is active against variety drug-resistant Gram positive (most notably MRSA )and Gram negative bacterial pathogens. Its lead compound, PZ-601, is in Phase II human clinical testing. Protez acquired PZ-601 (formerly SMP-216601) in 2005 from Dainippon Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals.   

Novartis is buying Protez to sure up its antibacterial drug pipeline. Novartis already sells Cubicin, (manufactured by Massachusetts-based Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc.,) in Europe and is developing other antimicrobials including Aurograb and Tifacogin to treat infections.

Like many of the newly marketed antibiotics, PZ-601 is injected and not orally bioavailable. Nevertheless, it is likely that PZ-601 will provide much needed help against the ever increasing number of drug resistant bacterial isolates. Swiss companies Basilea Pharmaceutica AG and Arpida Ltd. are also working on experimental medicines to treat MRSA.

It is not clear how the acquisition will affect Protez employees.  I suspect that most of the employees will keep their jobs except for Company officers.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!

Antibiotic Approval Update

Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd announced yesterday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an Approvable Letter for ceftobiprole, a first-in-class anti-MRSA broad-spectrum cephalosporin, for the treatment of complicated skin and skin structure infections including diabetic foot infections. Results from two Phase III studies involving 1600 patients with complicated skin and skin structure and diabetic foot infections showed that ceftobriprole was as effective and safe as other cephalosporin antibiotics.

The Approvable Letter indicates that the ceftobiprole application is approvable, subject to completion and assessment of clinical study site inspections; assessment of clinical and microbiological data provided but not yet reviewed; and further characterization of patients with diabetic foot infections. Ceftobiprole is currently being reviewed by regulatory authorities in Canada, the European Union and in Switzerland. The antibiotic is being co-developed and marketed with Johnson and Johnson.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!

Targanta Finally Files New Antibiotic NDA

Cambridge, Mass-based Targanta Therapeutics announced Monday that it had finally submitted a new drug application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its lead product, the antibiotic oritavancin. As mentioned in a previous post Targanta executives had decided to delay the submission of the oritavancin NDA.

Oritavancin is being touted as a viable option for treating antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. It would compete in the marketplace against drugs including telavancin being developed by Theravance and cubicin, an antibiotic offered by Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc to treat skin and blood infections.

Targanta has backed up its application with data from 19 clinical trials including two late-stage human clinical trials. More than 2,100 patients took part in the clinical testing of the drug.

I wish Targanta luck–we need new antibiotics!

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting

Two New Antibiotics on the Horizon

Two companies, Theravance and Targanta, have developed two new glycopeptide antibiotics, similar to vancomycin that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will consider for approval. This is very welcome news because antibiotic treatment options continue to diminish as bacterial antibiotic resistance continues to skyrocket. Unfortunately, like vancomycin, both antibiotics must be administered intravenously to treat infections.

Theravance filed a new drug application(NDA) with FDA for telavancin, a bactericidal, once-daily injectable antibiotic proposed to treat complicated skin and skin structure infections (cSSSI) caused by Gram-positive bacteria, including resistant pathogens such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The company received an approvable letter from FDA for telavancin but was asked for additional information to determine whether the agency will approve the drug. Theravance received notice in December from FDA that the agency's Anti-Infective Drugs Advisory Committee will meet on February 27 to review the new information and make a recommendation on telavancin’s approvability.

Targanta expects to file a NDA for its antibiotic, oritivancin, in the first quarter of 2008. Oritavancin is a semi-synthetic glycopeptide antibiotic with potent bactericidal (killing) activity against a broad spectrum of gram-positive bacteria. Two Phase 3 studies for the treatment of complicated skin and skin structure infection (cSSSI) have been completed. The antibiotic was originally discovered in the mid 90s by Eli Lilly research laboratories. In 2001, Lilly licensed oritivancin to Intermune who subsequently finished the phase III studies, but delayed filing the NDA in 2004 because of adverse side effects including injection site phlebitis. In 2005, Intermune divested itself of oritavancin and sold the worldwide ownership rights to Targanta.

The company apparently delayed submitting its NDA for oritivancin to FDA (even though the data were available for a couple of years) because the agency has been described as fickle when it comes to antibiotic approvals. Apparently, Targanta executives wanted to see how telavancin fared with FDA before it filed its application. Nevertheless, approval of the ortivancin NDA is strongly contingent upon information describing the benefits of oritavancin over vancomycin.

While neither antibiotic is groundbreaking for the treatment of infections caused by Gram positive pathogens, they both offer certain benefits over vancomycin.  Further, the addition of these new antibiotics to our current antibacterial armamentarium is timely given the growing incidence of vancomycin-resistant bacterial isolates.

The Beat Goes On: Merck Sells Antibiotic Manufacturing Facility

Reuters reported today that Merck & Co Inc has sold a manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania to PRWT Services Inc, as part of Merck's global restructuring of its manufacturing operations.

PRWT Services has entered into a five-year supply agreement with Merck valued at $100 million to $200 million a year, the companies said in a statement.

The Cherokee manufacturing plant in Riverside, Pennsylvania, employs 400 people, and produces antibiotics for humans and animals. As many of you may know, Merck’s CEO, Richard Clark ran manufacturing operations at Merck for 30 years before being appointed its top executive. Maybe he knows something that we don’t about the future of antibiotics?

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!

The Nose Knows-Antibiotic Treatment May Not Help Sinus Infections

Sinus infections are diagnosed in about 31 million Americans each year and are among the most common reasons for doctor visits. The infections affect the air spaces (sinuses) around the nose and in the lower forehead. Inflammation and excess mucous can cause nose congestion, headaches and eye and face pain. Causes include bacteria, viruses, fungal infections and allergies.

A study published in the December issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed that patients with sinus infections treated with antibiotics did not get better more quickly than those treated with placebo, And, that most sinus infections would resolve themselves over time without treatment. The lack of effectiveness of antibiotic treatment could be explained by the inability of many antibiotics to reach the site of infection in the sinuses. Also, it is important to point out, that antibiotic treatment is ONLY EFFECTIVE when treating bacterial infections; not those caused by viruses or fungi. To that end, infectious disease experts issued guidelines in 2001 advising against using antibiotics for most sinus infections in otherwise healthy people, blaming overuse for contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.

Critics of the study questioned whether all the patients in the study had true bacterial sinus infections. Although patients were recruited to the study by family doctors, the results were based on patients' self-reported symptoms rather than medical exams that confirmed actual cases of sinus infections. So it goes….

BTW, recent studies suggest that yellowish or greenish mucous doesn't always mean the infections are bacterial–another urban legend bites the dust.

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!