Wyeth receives EU approval for new MRSA antibiotic

Wyeth has received European approval the use of its new antibiotic, Tygacil. The company says it is the first in a new class of antibiotics known as glycylcyclines and it is targeted at patients with “complicated infections” in the skin or soft tissue and in intra-abdominal areas.

The company says it has shown activity against many bacteria acquired in hospitals and the wider community that are resistant against combinations of anti-biotics, including methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE). It added that some three million people in the EU acquire a hospital-borne infection, from which 50,000 people die.

Tygacil is a broad-spectrum anti-biotic, meaning it can be used against many bacteria causing illnesses before the specific bacteria causing it can be identified. Professor Mark Wilcox, clinical director of microbiology and infection control at Leeds Teaching Hospital, said: “When a patient develops a serious infection in hospital it takes between 24 and 48 hours to pinpoint the bacteria responsible. It is vital, therefore, in these critical early stages of treatment, to have efficacious broad-spectrum antibiotics available.”

David McIntosh, Wyeth’s medical director, added: “The availability of Tygacil in Europe will provide physicians with an important new alternative in the treatment of complicated skin and intra-abdominal infections.”

Tygacil has already been in use for several months in the US, where the FDA approved the drug for use in June 2005.

MRSA is commonly known in the UK as the hospital superbug and it was first discovered in Britain in 1961. Recently it has been observed that the MRSA bacteria can replicate inside of certain amoebas, enhancing its ability to spread.

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