Brief Update

Sanofi-Aventis -As predicted in a previous blog, it appears to be true that they are back in the antibiotics business for real.  Sanofi just signed a Glaxo-like deal with Rib-X for Rib-X's discovery program and they are speaking with a number of other small companies and with academic groups.  Sanofi is the first company to come back to the area after leaving it since Roche first departed antibiotic research in 1999!  We all need to change our charts!

The GAO - has found that the CDC is not doing an adequate job of surveying for resistance nor are they adequately tracking antibiotic use.  Wow!  The surprise of the century!  If you don't provide money, you can't study things or at least not as carefully as you would like.

Gonorrhea - are getting resistant to everything.  This has been coming for a long time.  Now its here.  But the market is not large enough to support the studies that would be required to register new drugs to treat the infection.  Government - your turn!

Related articles

• Kristin: Gonorrhea Superbug: First Antibiotic-Resistant STD Strain Discovered (huffingtonpost.com)
• Sanofi (France) Pays Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc. $10 Million Upfront As Part of Antibiotics Collaboration (biospace.com)