A phase II clinical trial pitched Summit’s ridinilazole against a specialist (narrow-spectrum) drug, fidaxomicin
Summit Therapeutics PLC’s (LON:SUMM, NASDAQ:SMMT) next-generation antibiotic scored well in a head to head with the existing treatment for Clostridium difficile infection (C.difficile).
A phase II clinical trial pitched Summit’s ridinilazole against a specialist (narrow-spectrum) drug, fidaxomicin. The data revealed that both reduced the abundance of C.difficile. However, ridinilazole had “markedly less” impact on the gut microbiome.
Body’s ecosystem
The ecosystem of the gut is part of the human microbiome, which also exists on the skin. It is thought to be key to regulating the body’s function, the way it digests food, vitamins and medicines and how it repels infection and disease.
Summit chief medical officer Dr David Roblin said: “Ridinilazole is a precision antibiotic that is designed to selectively target C.difficile while being highly preserving of the gut microbiome that plays a crucial role in naturally protecting against recurrent CDI.
Highly selective
“Ridinilazole has now provided evidence of its high selectivity in two complementary clinical trials.
“The data from our earlier phase II trial showed a greater microbiome preservation of ridinilazole-treated patients compared with the current standard of care, vancomycin, which led to achieving statistical superiority in sustained clinical response.”
The latest study is a different one from the phase III trial of ridinilazole currently underway and is expected to yield early data in first half of next year. It gave limited pointers on efficacy compared with fidaxomicin.
An earlier phase II trial, which pitched ridinilazole against vancomycin, delivered impressive results in phase II.
