Anitbiotics developer Cempra Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: CEMP), which in October completed a $25 million private placement of additional shares, has launched a new clinical trial.
The Phase 3 trial is for its antibiotic called solithromycin. It will be tested on patients with community-acquired bacterial pneumonia.
“Physicians need safe, convenient and active antibiotics to treat CABP, a disease that is the number one cause of death due to infection,” said Prabhavathi Fernandes, chief executive officer of Cempra. “Current therapy for moderate to moderately-severe CABP is a choice between combination therapy with intravenous antibiotics or oral administration of fluoroquinolone antibiotics. The former involves intravenous therapy, possibly requiring hospital admission and the latter has been associated with significant side effects, possibly including Clostridium difficile infection due to the class’s broad activity spectrum.”
