Closely-held Appili Therapeutics will be receiving an additional $400,000 from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) to support development of ATI-1503, an antibiotic targeting drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, including Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobactor baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
These superbugs cause potentially deadly infections, including pneumonia and blood infections. The latest funding brings IRAP support for this project to a total of up to $759,000.
“Doctors are fast running out of treatment options and IRAP funding is an important part of our financial strategy for helping Appili develop a new antibiotic that can treat these deadly diseases,” Kimberly Stephens, CFO of Appili, said in a statement.
ATI-1503 is a synthetic version of the naturally-occurring Negamycin antibiotic. Using IRAP funding, Appili’s drug development team will employ advanced X-ray crystallography to visualize the exact structure of ATI-1503 binding to the bacterial target. The crystal structure data is then used to systematically and precisely optimize the potency of ATI-1503 against these drug-resistant infections.
