UK’s Wellcome Trust to fund Sphaera Pharma’s MDR-tuberculosis drug development
Funding to help Sphaera advance new drug through phase 1 clinical trials
Hyderabad: Sphaera Pharma Pvt. Ltd, a Gurgaon-based drug discovery and development company, on Tuesday (July 21) said UK-based biomedical research charity Wellcome Trust had agreed to fund the development of its new drug to treat multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
The funding will help Sphaera advance the new drug through phase 1 clinical trials—where the drug will be tested on healthy volunteers to establish its safety.
Sphaera declined to disclose the size of the funding but said the company needs around $10 million to complete the clinical trial.
Currently, the new molecule is undergoing pre-clinical processes and phase-1 trials are expected to begin in the first half of next year, said Sundeep Dugar, chief executive officer of Sphaera.
Sphaera said the trials could take anywhere between 3-5 years.
“A successful phase-1 will give us the ability to reach out to major pharmaceutical companies who are looking for novel therapeutics,” Dugar said.
Sphaera is developing the new MDR-TB drug in partnership with Drug Discovery Research Centre (DDRC) of the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute of Department of Biotechnology. DDRC is providing development and funding support. The project is also funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The drug works by modifying host proteins to stop the activity of the bacteria and works in conjunction with current therapies, Dugar said.
“There is no really good and effective treatment for multiple drug-resistant and extensive drug-resistant TB that has been identified. Hopefully our approach is going address this deficit,” Dugar said
Source: Livemint
