18 Sep 2019 07:00
Summit Announces Publication of Editorial in Future Microbiology Advocating for Innovation in Antibiotic Development to Drive Stewardship Focus on Improving Patient Outcomes
Summit Therapeutics plc (‘Summit’ or the ‘Company’)
Summit Announces Publication of Editorial in Future Microbiology Advocating for Innovation in Antibiotic Development to Drive Stewardship Focus on Improving Patient Outcomes
New Classes of Targeted Antibiotics Support Stewardship and could Combat ResistanceOxford, UK, and Cambridge, MA, US, 18 September 2019 – Summit Therapeutics plc (NASDAQ: SMMT, AIM: SUMM) today announced the publication of a Personal Perspective entitled “Combating Resistance While Maintaining Innovation: The Future of Antimicrobial Stewardship” in the journal Future Microbiology. The paper calls for innovation in the development of antimicrobial products to drive antibiotic stewardship programmes (‘ASPs’) to focus on improving patient outcomes.
“Antimicrobial stewardship calls for the appropriate use of antibiotics to optimise patient outcomes by ensuring the right drug, right dose and duration are administered,” said Professor Cornelius Clancy, Director of the XDR Pathogen Lab at the University of Pittsburgh. “Through our publication, we are advocating for the focus to be on measures directly connected to the patients and on improving their care. I believe evolving the current stewardship programmes will be incentivised by the emergence of innovative antimicrobials designed for specific infectious diseases.”
The concept of antibiotic stewardship arose in the 1970s in response to the emergence of antibiotic resistance. Its purpose was to ensure judicious antibiotic use to optimise clinical outcomes for patients. However, a recent Infectious Disease Society of America (‘IDSA’) survey indicated that 87% of hospital providers in the US considered reducing antibiotic costs a major driver in their ASPs, despite antibiotic cost not being in the definition of antibiotic stewardship. With ASPs to be implemented in all US acute care hospitals by 2020, and numerous stewardship initiatives in Europe, the publication outlines why it is crucial that ASPs are optimised to focus on measures such as resistance, mortality, hospital length of stay and readmission rates. This could encourage use of innovative antibiotics to improve patient outcomes and reduce the total burden of bacterial infections on healthcare systems.
“Our approach to antibiotic drug development aims to end the perception that new antibiotics are ‘break-in-emergency’ treatments. Our lead antibiotic, ridinilazole, is being developing for C. difficile infection, where current treatments fail in about a third of cases. Ridinilazole is a new class antibiotic with a new mechanism of action and our landmark Phase 3 is a superiority clinical trial designed to support the value of its use front-line. Our approach shows how innovation can closely align with good stewardship as we seek to achieve better outcomes for patients,” said Dr David Roblin, President of R&D of Summit.
Targeted spectrum antibiotics have the potential to significantly enhance antibiotic stewardship. With the advances in rapid diagnostics, targeted antibiotics could be developed as front-line treatments for a specific infection, potentially showing clear benefits in patient outcomes over the current standard of care, while allowing use of existing broad-spectrum agents to be reserved. In addition, new classes of antibiotics are likely to circumvent existing resistance mechanisms compared to analogues of current classes where antibiotic resistance already exists.
About Summit Therapeutics Summit Therapeutics is a leader in antibiotic innovation. Our new mechanism antibiotics are designed to become the new standards of care for the benefit of patients and create value for payors and healthcare providers. We are currently developing new mechanism antibiotics for infections caused by C. difficile, N. gonorrhoeae and Enterobacteriaceae and are using our proprietary Discuva Platform to expand our pipeline. For more information, visit www.summitplc.com and follow us on Twitter @summitplc.
Contacts
| Summit | ||
| Glyn Edwards / Richard Pye (UK office) | Tel: | 44 (0)1235 443 951 |
| Michelle Avery (US office) | +1 617 225 4455 | |
| Cairn Financial Advisers LLP (Nominated Adviser) | Tel: | +44 (0)20 7213 0880 |
| Liam Murray / Tony Rawlinson | ||
| N+1 Singer (Joint Broker) | Tel: | +44 (0)20 7496 3000 |
| Aubrey Powell / Jen Boorer, Corporate FinanceTom Salvesen, Corporate Broking | ||
| Bryan Garnier & Co Limited (Joint Broker) | Tel: | +44 (0)20 7332 2500 |
| Phil Walker / Dominic Wilson | ||
| MSL Group (US) | Tel: | +1 781 684 6557 |
| Jon Siegal | summit@mslgroup.com | |
| Consilium Strategic Communications (UK) | Tel: | +44 (0)20 3709 5700 |
| Mary-Jane Elliott / Sue Stuart / Sukaina Virji | summit@consilium-comms.com | |
| Lindsey Neville |
Summit Forward-looking Statements
Any statements in this press release about the Company’s future expectations, plans and prospects, including but not limited to, statements about the clinical and preclinical development of the Company’s product candidates, the therapeutic potential of the Company’s product candidates, the potential commercialisation of the Company’s product candidates, the sufficiency of the Company’s cash resources, the timing of initiation, completion and availability of data from clinical trials, the potential submission of applications for marketing approvals and other statements containing the words "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "target," "would," and similar expressions, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: the uncertainties inherent in the initiation of future clinical trials, availability and timing of data from ongoing and future clinical trials and the results of such trials, whether preliminary results from a clinical trial will be predictive of the final results of that trial or whether results of early clinical trials or preclinical studies will be indicative of the results of later clinical trials, expectations for regulatory approvals, laws and regulations affecting government contracts and funding awards, availability of funding sufficient for the Company’s foreseeable and unforeseeable operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements and other factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of filings that the Company makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company’s Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended 31 January 2019. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information. In addition, any forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company’s views only as of the date of this release and should not be relied upon as representing the Company’s views as of any subsequent date. The Company specifically disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements included in this press release.
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