Rib-X Pharmaceuticals Renews Collaborative Agreement with the Medical Research Council
New Haven, Connecticut and London, U.K. April 14, 2008 — Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,
a development stage company focused on the discovery and development of novel antibiotics for
the treatment of antibiotic resistant infections, and the Laboratory of Molecular Biology
of the Medical Research Council (MRC) today announced they have renewed their research
collaboration agreement in the area of ribosome and antibiotic structure and function for
an additional year. Under the terms of the Agreement, Rib-X and the MRC will continue to
jointly explore the high resolution crystal structure of the 70S ribosome.
"Using information discovered about the ribosome during our first year of work with the MRC, Rib-X has been able to advance the iterative intelligent discovery engine that the Company developed to design novel antibiotic scaffolds which circumvent the mechanisms employed by resistant bacteria," said Erin Duffy, Ph.D., Rib-X's Vice President of Structure Based Drug Design. "This is a natural extension of our relationship with MRC, which will build upon Dr. Venki Ramakrishnan's discovery of the structure of the full 70S ribosome and, in turn, increase our understanding, on an atomic level, of the binding properties of antibiotics to the 50S subunit of the ribosome."
About Rib-X Pharmaceuticals
Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a product-driven small-molecule drug discovery and development company focused on developing and commercializing antibiotics to treat highly-resistant bacterial infections. Based in New Haven, Connecticut, the Company has raised over $170 million and has two programs, delafloxacin and radezolid, in advanced clinical trials. In addition, a preclinical program featuring an entirely new class of broad-spectrum antibiotics with the potential to treat even highly- resistant Gram-negative infections is scheduled to begin clinical trials in 2011.
Rib-X designs and develops novel small-molecule antibiotics by leveraging the Company's Nobel Prize- winning discovery platform to perform structure-based design and optimization. While many commercially valuable classes of antibiotics bind to the bacterial ribosome, including oxazolidinones, tetracyclines and macrolides, traditional antibiotic discovery relies heavily on serendipity. Rib-X's key competitive advantage is its proprietary understanding of ribosome structure, which enables it to generate antibiotics that overcome known resistance mechanisms and have broad-spectrum activity.
Rib-X's integrated research strategy combines state-of-the-art, proprietary computational analysis, X-ray crystallography, medicinal chemistry, microbiology and biochemistry, thereby allowing Rib-X to rapidly synthesize new agents designed to avoid typical antibiotic resistance mechanisms. Rib-X's iterative intelligent engine has yielded several distinct new antibiotic classes.
"Using information discovered about the ribosome during our first year of work with the MRC, Rib-X has been able to advance the iterative intelligent discovery engine that the Company developed to design novel antibiotic scaffolds which circumvent the mechanisms employed by resistant bacteria," said Erin Duffy, Ph.D., Rib-X's Vice President of Structure Based Drug Design. "This is a natural extension of our relationship with MRC, which will build upon Dr. Venki Ramakrishnan's discovery of the structure of the full 70S ribosome and, in turn, increase our understanding, on an atomic level, of the binding properties of antibiotics to the 50S subunit of the ribosome."
About Rib-X Pharmaceuticals
Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a product-driven small-molecule drug discovery and development company focused on developing and commercializing antibiotics to treat highly-resistant bacterial infections. Based in New Haven, Connecticut, the Company has raised over $170 million and has two programs, delafloxacin and radezolid, in advanced clinical trials. In addition, a preclinical program featuring an entirely new class of broad-spectrum antibiotics with the potential to treat even highly- resistant Gram-negative infections is scheduled to begin clinical trials in 2011.
Rib-X designs and develops novel small-molecule antibiotics by leveraging the Company's Nobel Prize- winning discovery platform to perform structure-based design and optimization. While many commercially valuable classes of antibiotics bind to the bacterial ribosome, including oxazolidinones, tetracyclines and macrolides, traditional antibiotic discovery relies heavily on serendipity. Rib-X's key competitive advantage is its proprietary understanding of ribosome structure, which enables it to generate antibiotics that overcome known resistance mechanisms and have broad-spectrum activity.
Rib-X's integrated research strategy combines state-of-the-art, proprietary computational analysis, X-ray crystallography, medicinal chemistry, microbiology and biochemistry, thereby allowing Rib-X to rapidly synthesize new agents designed to avoid typical antibiotic resistance mechanisms. Rib-X's iterative intelligent engine has yielded several distinct new antibiotic classes.
| Public Relations |
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Kari Watson
MacDougall BioMedical Communications 781-235-3060 kari@macbiocom.com |
| Investor Relations |
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Sarah Cavanaugh
MacDougall BioMedical Communications 781-235-3060 scavanaugh@macbiocom.com |