New European Program Targets Novel Antibiotics

Over 30 European universities and companies, led by GlaxoSmithKline and Uppsala University, are participating in a six-year program funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) to develop novel antibiotics against gram-negative pathogens in a project called ENABLE (European Gram Negative Antibacterial Engine).

The IMI, a research partnership between the European Commission and major pharmaceutical companies (through EFPIA, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations), has launched New Drugs for Bad Bugs (ND4BB), a series of projects that targets the challenges in the development and effective use of novel antibiotics.

The ENABLE project, the third within the ND4BB series, spans 13 countries and brings together 32 partners with the goal to establish an anti-bacterial drug discovery platform for the progression of research programs through discovery and Phase I clinical trials. A preliminary portfolio of programs will be expanded through open calls outside the consortium to create a full development pipeline, with the goal to deliver at least one novel anti-bacterial candidate against gram-negative infections into phase II clinical trials by 2019.