An old antibiotic finds a second use
A compound shelved in the 1980s for poor absorption is showing results against a resistant infection that has few options left.
The molecule was abandoned four decades ago for a mundane reason: taken orally, almost none of it reached the bloodstream. In an era with plenty of alternatives, that ended the programme.
A research group revisited the compound because the modern problem is different. The infection in question has become resistant to most of what replaced it, and poor absorption is a solvable engineering issue when the alternative is nothing.
Reformulated for intravenous use, the drug cleared a mid-stage trial with a response rate that investigators called better than they had any right to expect, and a side-effect profile consistent with the original 1980s data.
Regulators have granted an accelerated review, reflecting how short the list of options has become for patients with this particular resistance pattern.
The broader lesson, the lead investigator argued, concerns the archive. Thousands of compounds were shelved for reasons that no longer apply, and almost nobody is paid to go back and look.
