C.Diff Treatment Completes Successful Clinical Trials

Second phase clinical trials of a treatment for Clostridium difficile Infection (CDI), discovered at the University of Strathclyde, have been successfully completed having met its targets of safety, efficacy and dose selection. The study, carried out in the US and Canada by Glasgow-based biopharmaceutical company MGB Biopharma, confirmed that the antibacterial treatment MGB-BP-3, has the potential to become the new gold standard, first-line treatment for CDI.

Other compounds related to MGB-BP-3 are now to be investigated in a project led by Strathclyde for their potential to treat COVID-19. The success of MGB-BP-3 in the clinic is very encouraging for this new study.

CDI is a serious and often life-threatening infection of the large intestine and is the most frequent cause of diarrhoea in hospitals and care homes. In the clinical trials, patients with CDI were given MGB-BP-3 twice daily for 10 days, achieving an initial cure and sustained cure of 100% at the optimum dose.

MGB Biopharma licensed the compounds from Strathclyde in 2010.

Professor Colin Suckling, MGB (Minor Groove Binder) compounds inventor at Strathclyde University said: “ The news from MGB Biopharma that a MGB-BP-3, a compound discovered in our chemistry department, successfully cures people of Clostridium difficile infection is exciting and hugely significant, not only for these patients but also for further developments of related compounds from Strathclyde to treat other infectious diseases.

“The Strathclyde Minor Groove Binder (S-MGB) project, from which MGB-BP-3 comes, was devised to tackle a wide range of infectious diseases and we have evidence that other compounds in the series are effective in models of fungal and parasitic diseases for which there are no good treatments currently. We are also starting a project to investigate the potential of S-MBGs to tackle COVID-19 supported by the Chief Scientist Office, Scotland and led by my colleague Dr Fraser Scott.

“MGB Biopharma has done an extraordinary job to develop our compound this far and we look forward to further progress together with our excellent academic colleagues at the University of Glasgow and University of Manchester.”