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news.La Jolla Pharmaceutical (La Jolla) has entered into an exclusive option agreement to acquire the Indiana University Research and Technology Center’s (IURTC) intellectual property rights covering next-generation gentamicin derivatives.
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Despite causing kidney toxicity, gentamicin has become one of the most commonly prescribed hospital antibiotics.
The product drug consists of a mixture of distinct but closely related chemical entities that may contribute differentially to its toxicity profile.
IURTC’s technology will be used for next-generation, parenteral gentamicin derivatives as antimicrobial agents with the potential for reduced toxicity.
La Jolla president and CEO George Tidmarsh said: "We believe that our next-generation gentamicin derivatives may retain the activity of gentamicin, but improve the therapeutic window, thereby improving the outcome for patients requiring antimicrobial agents and potentially creating new opportunities for the treatment of rare genetic disorders."
The company has also entered into a second option agreement with IURTC and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) for the use of these next-generation compounds to treat certain rare genetic diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
According to La Jolla, gentamicin’s ability to induce a lack of fidelity in gene transcription, intrinsic to its antimicrobial mechanism of action, can be used in the correction of certain human genetic mutations that lead to rare genetic disorders.
Initially, La Jolla has selected two lead development candidates from the technology, LJPC-30Sa and LJPC-30Sb, which are purified components of the currently marketed gentamicin product.
Both LJPC-30Sa and LJPC-30Sb retain the biologic activity of gentamicin, yet appear to lack the traditional kidney toxicity associated with it.