Anacor Pharmaceuticals Awarded U.S. Government Funding to Discover New Classes of Systemic Antibiotics
PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Anacor Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ANAC) today announced it has entered into a research agreement with the United States Department of Defense, Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to design and discover new classes of systemic antibiotics. A drug discovery consortium formed by Anacor, Colorado State University (C.S.U.) and the University of California at Berkeley (U.C. Berkeley) will conduct the research over a three and a half year period. The work is funded by a $13.5 million award from DTRA's R&D Innovation and Systems Engineering Office which was established to search for and execute strategic investments in innovative technologies for combating weapons of mass destruction.
"Increasing resistance to existing antibiotics has created a critical need for new classes of antibiotics. We are pleased that DTRA recognizes the potential of Anacor's innovative boron chemistry, and we are looking forward to collaborating with DTRA, C.S.U. and U.C. Berkeley on this important research," said David Perry, Anacor's Chief Executive Officer.
Under this award, Anacor will apply its boron chemistry to discover rationally designed novel antibiotics that target DTRA-priority pathogens known to exhibit resistance to existing antibiotics. This work will be performed in collaboration with Dr. Richard Slayden, Associate Director for the Center for Environmental Medicine, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, Colorado State University and two University of California Berkeley researchers, Dr. Jamie Cate, Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology and of Chemistry, and Dr. Jonas Noeske, all widely regarded as experts in the field. The new classes of boron-containing antibiotics would be considered for further development by DTRA as part of ongoing programs to improve medical countermeasures against biological threats.
