PTC Therapeutics(PTC) received a $17.2-million award from the United States Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) for the discovery and development of small molecule antibacterials against biowarfare or bioterrorism agents.
“The DTRA award allows us to diversify our pipeline to include antibacterial agents targeting post-transcriptional control mechanisms,” comments Stuart W. Peltz, president and CEO.
PTC plans to utilize this three-year contract to initiate Phase I trials. In in vitro tests, the lead compounds in PTC’s antibacterial program demonstrated significant activity against several drug-resistant strains of bacteria, including methicillin-resistant and multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant Enterococci.