Antibiotics Startup Gets $22M From Roche, Others, For New "Macrolides"
Summary
The startup was co-founded by Lawrence Miller and Harvard University chemist Andrew Myers, who have teamed up in the past to create another antibiotics company, Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: TTPH).A historical lack of pricing power (compared to other life-saving drugs) and clarity around regulations stifled research, leading pharma companies to put much of their dollars elsewhere.While the pricing problem still hangs over the field, the GAIN Act, passed by U.S. Congress in 2012, has helped by adding incentives such as an additional five years of market exclusivity and shorter timelines to approval.Those kinds of numbers have spurred more R&D efforts among pharmas; Roche has been particularly active, cutting deals the past few years with several companies such as the recent Massachusetts startup Spero Therapeutics.“Andy Myers and I are excited to apply this new technology to a highly effective and safe class of antibiotics, the macrolides, where we already have encouraging data in gram-positive and gram-negative species,” Miller said in a statement.