What Makes Ridinilazole Unique?

Dr. Richard Vickers, chief scientific officer of R&D at Summit Therapeutics, explains what makes ridinilazole unique.

Interview Transcript (modified slightly for readability):

“At Summit Therapeutics, we’re developing ridinilazole for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). Ridinilazole is a novel, highly-targeted spectrum of activity antibiotic for C. difficile infection, and what really makes ridinilazole so unique is that it has activity against C. difficile, but almost no other bacteria.

If we think back to what we were discussing earlier, we see collateral damage with broad-spectrum antibiotics—either those that precipitate the initial infections or the ones we’re using to treat CDI—but with ridinilazole we can target the offending pathogen; we kill C. difficile, but we don’t cause that collateral damage and that means that the niche that C. difficile can exploit starts to dissipate. We then minimize the risk of recurrent disease, and it gives us an opportunity to not only treat the initial infection but to reduce the recurrence of CDI. That’s what we’re really looking for here when thinking about developing new C. diff therapies: reservation of the microbiome, no further collateral damage, and allowing some level of natural recovery.”