GARDP and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation announce partnership in search for new antibiotics

The Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC) have signed an agreement for GARDP to access over 50,000 compounds from MTPC’s compound library. The set of compounds will be tested by the Institut Pasteur Korea in an optimized high throughput screen with the aim of discovering novel compounds with antibacterial activity against drug-resistant bacteria. This agreement supports GARDP’s efforts to tackle serious bacterial infections by developing antibiotics while endeavouring to ensure their sustainable access.

With few antibiotics in development, antimicrobial resistance is a rapidly growing global health threat. Nearly 1.3 million people die of drug-resistant infections every year. Serious bacterial infections, and especially those caused by Gram-negative bacteria, have been identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a global public health priority.

The compounds to be provided by MTPC will be tested against bacteria identified as a critical priority for research and development of new antibiotics in WHO’s global priority pathogens list. Through this screening, GARDP and MTPC seek to identify novel compounds active against novel bacterial targets that could form the basis of new drugs.

“It is a privilege to have access to MTPC’s compound library, which has never been screened for antibacterial activity,” said Laura Piddock, Scientific Director, GARDP. “Now that we’ve been able to establish our high throughput screen with Institut Pasteur Korea, we are well-positioned to screen libraries like that of MTPC, and we welcome the opportunity to screen libraries as they become available to us.”

“Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation acts in accordance with our mission, ‘Creating hope for all facing illness.’ A key value in our work is access to healthcare, to which we contribute by providing our own unique compounds to be screened for research of malaria, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases (Chagas disease and leishmaniasis), as well as by carrying out collaborative research on hit compounds identified during the screening. It is a great honour for us to have another opportunity to contribute to global health through this collaboration with GARDP,” stated Masao Nawano, Head of Sohyaku, Innovative Research Division, MTPC.