Novartis buys Protez for rights to new antibiotic

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

BASLE, Switzerland (AFP) — Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis announced on Wednesday it had bought Protez Pharmaceuticals for 100 million dollars (64.8 million euros), thus acquiring the rights to a new antibiotic.

The initial 100-million-dollar payment could be followed by up to another 300 million depending on the performance of PZ-601, the antibiotic developed by Protez.

PZ-601 is currently undergoing phase II tests. Novartis and Protez are hoping it will act as a broad-spectrum antibiotic effective against potentially fatal drug-resistant infections, a growing problem in hospitals.

In its statement, Novartis said that more than 100,000 people were estimated to have died in the US and Europe from problems relating to antibiotic resistance.

© 2008 AFP

Premium Content Partnership | MyWire provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works. MyWire
 

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Please add your comment:

  1. You are currently: a Guest |
  2.  

Basic HTML tags that work in comments are: bold (<b></b>), italic (<i></i>), underline (<u></u>), and hyperlink (<a href></a)