5 May 2010

An abstract of a study by Evans et al demonstrating whether daily bathing with cloths impregnated with 2% chlorhexidine gluconate will decrease colonization of resistant bacteria and reduce the rates of health care-associated infections in critically injured patients is presented. Daily bathing of trauma patients with cloths impregnated with 2% chlorhexidine gluconate is associated with a decreased rate of colonization by MRSA and Acinetobacter and lower rates of catheter-related bloodstream infection and MRSA ventilator-associated pneumonia.

Two emerging agents from Forest/AstraZeneca/Takeda and Trius are anticipated to drive the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) drug market to increase from $631 million in 2009 to $752 million in 2019 in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Japan.

The Pharmacor 2010 findings from the topic entitled Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus find that Forest/AstraZeneca/Takeda’s ceftaroline and Trius’s torezolid will capture more than one-third of the MRSA drug market in 2019. A new drug application for ceftaroline for complicated skin and skin structure infections (cSSSIs) and community-acquired bacterial pneumonia was filed in the fourth quarter of 2009, and torezolid — a second generation oxazolidinone — is expected to begin Phase III clinical trials for cSSSI by end of 2010.

Torezolid, if approved, would join Zyvox as the second oxazolidinone with IV/oral formulations available in the MRSA drug market.

The Pharmacor 2010 findings also reveal that leading infectious disease experts in the U.S. and Europe consider the increased availability of oral formulations to be a key unmet need for MRSA treatment. Interviewed key opinion leaders indicate that the availability of additional oral MRSA therapies would offer a significant advantage over intravenous therapies, particularly in outpatient settings, community-acquired MRSA infections and infections such as osteomyelitis which require long-term treatment.

Lee Ann Torrans
ltorrans@gmail.com