EbsArgent targets urinary tract infections, with early indications of efficacy against many species of multidrug-resistant bacteria
STOCKHOLM, Oct. 30, 2024 – Thioredoxin Systems AB (TXN Systems), a pharmaceutical company developing a first-in-class antibiotic for multidrug-resistant urinary tract infections, today announced the close of an approximate SEK 25 million (USD 2.4M) Series A financing round to support the development of EbsArgent™, the company’s first-in-class bactericidal antibiotic for urinary tract infections (UTIs) caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The round includes substantial investments from prominent life sciences entrepreneurs and investors Mikael Lönn, MD and Jens Mogensen, alongside GU Ventures, Vasa Angels, and the state-owned venture capital firm Annexstruktur – as well as from Gobia Enterprises, a family-owned investment firm focusing on life sciences.
“There hasn’t been a new class of antibiotics developed since 1987, and I’m incredibly excited about the potential of EbsArgent. With its novel mechanism of action on a new target, and extensive testing that has demonstrated its effectiveness against a wide range of drug-resistant pathogens, EbsArgent could give us a valuable new weapon in the fight against antibiotic resistance,” Lönn said. “TXN Systems’ world-class science is backed by a proven strong team, and we look forward to supporting the company as it advances EbsArgent into the clinic.”
A study published in the journal The Lancet in September 2024 estimates the world could see more than 39 million deaths directly caused by antimicrobial resistance (AMR) from 2025 to 2050. More than 2.8 million bacterial infections occur in the U.S. each year, and 35,000 people die because of them, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the country’s public health agency. Europe sees similar numbers, with about 35,000 AMR-related deaths occurring annually, according to the European Commission. AMR happens when pathogens evade the medicines intended to kill them.
TXN Systems will use proceeds from the Series A to complete preclinical studies of its patented EbsArgent and initiate Phase I clinical trials of the therapeutic in UTIs. Multidrug-resistant UTIs have become a pressing problem for the medical community, and managing urological procedures in hospitals is emerging as a growing challenge due to antibiotic resistance. Almost a quarter of all infections are UTIs, and studies have shown that approximately 9 percent of all urological inpatients develop complicated UTIs during their hospital stay.
“Urinary tract infections, once easily cured, are becoming more and more resistant to multiple antibiotics and some standard treatments no longer work,” said TXN Systems CEO Elias Arnér, MD, PhD. “However, the burden of antimicrobial resistance across healthcare will be of unprecedented levels, in all geographic regions. We have evaluated EbsArgent against a wide range of clinically derived bacterial strains of many different species, each with pronounced resistance against most, or all, of the currently available antibiotics. EbsArgent shows strong efficacy against all of them. We’re extremely pleased to attract such high-caliber investors, and grateful for the confidence they have in our novel technology. We look forward to working with them to advance EbsArgent.”
EbsArgent is a combination drug containing silver ions and the compound ebselen to achieve a novel mechanism of action. By utilizing ebselen to disable the essential bacterial thioredoxin enzyme system and leveraging silver ions to synergistically enhance ebselen uptake, EbsArgent achieves a high level of bactericidal activity. Several studies have validated the bacterial thioredoxin reductase enzyme as a novel target for antimicrobial therapeutic development. No occurrence of cross-resistance with other antibiotics has been observed, likely because the thioredoxin system is not targeted by commercially available antibiotics and ebselen is a novel type of molecule compared to other antibiotics.
In mouse models, EbsArgent has demonstrated safety, low toxicity, and good efficacy in multidrug-resistant gram-negative infections and multidrug-resistant urinary tract infections specifically. It also shows promising activity against the formation of biofilms with many bacterial strains, including E. coli, which is preferable because bacteria grown as biofilm make complicated UTIs more difficult to treat.
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