CARB-X injects up to $48 million to accelerate drug discovery, development projects to tackle antibiotic resistance

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – The Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator, or CARB-X, is investing $24 million and up to $24 million milestone-based additional payments over three years to help 11 biotech companies and research teams in the United States and United Kingdom accelerate the development of life-saving antibacterials and diagnostics to treat infections caused by the world’s deadliest antibiotic-resistant bacteria. 

The funded projects are early stage research programs and include three potential new classes of small molecule antibiotics, which, if successful, could be the first new class since 1984. Also included in the pipeline are four innovative, non-traditional products that could offer alternate approaches to targeting and killing bacteria.

RTI International is providing technical and regulatory support services to product developers in these accelerators as well as building and running the computing systems to identify, track and monitor all research in the identified research programs. RTI will also be evaluating the program to identify best practices and areas for improvement.

There are an estimated 700,000 deaths each year around the world from drug-resistant infections. In the United States alone, an estimated 23,000 people die each year from antibiotic resistant infections, and the pipeline of novel therapies to treat ‘superbugs’ is precariously thin. 

“We are excited to be a partner in the innovative CARB-X initiative by building elements of the CARB-X systems infrastructure and assisting the CARB-X funded companies with the design and development of their programs and interactions with FDA,” said Doris Rouse, Ph.D., vice president, global health technologies at RTI. “Along with the whole CARB-X team, we are strongly committed to combatting the deadly and growing threat of antibiotic-resistant infections.”