Endolytix Technology, Inc is developing a new therapeutic approach that addresses antibiotic resistance in nontuberculous mycobacterial infections (NTMs) such as the MAC complex and M. abscessus, as well as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The prevalence of diagnosed NTM infections in the US alone is projected at over 150,000 cases with the incidence of new infections increasing by 8.2% annually, whereas according to the World Health Organization, 10 million people per year become ill with TB and 1.5 million die.
According to the CDC:
Antibiotic resistance—the ability of germs to defeat the drugs designed to kill them—is one of the greatest global public health challenges of our time.
2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur in the U.S. each year, 35,000 people die as a result.
For a history of antibiotic resistance go here.
The world is running out of antibiotics, read more here.
Endolytix provides options for patients who have few to none.
Endolytix is developing novel therapeutics to address the most resistant of antibiotic infections that are difficult to access, treat, and patient tolerance for current therapies are low. The lack of susceptibility to antibiotics is in part due to the very thick and complicated cell envelope that prevents effective chemical intervention by blocking access of many drugs from entering mycobacteria. Their defenses go beyond their inhibitory cell envelope but are further reenforced by hiding in macrophage cells designed to kill invading bacteria but are instead usurped into becoming a growth reservoir, thus further making drug access even more challenging.
Endolytix therapies are very effective at killing pathogenic NTM mycobacteria both inside and outside of macrophages. The killing ability inside of macrophages is the result of building targeted drug delivery vehicles for our bactericidal payloads.