Gates MRI Licenses Caliber Tuberculosis Treatment Discovery

Scripps Research’s drug development division, Calibra, is passing on one of its discoveries to the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute for its take on tuberculosis.

On February 15, Calibra announced that it was entering into a strategic licensing agreement to advance and develop an investigational compound discovered by Scripps researchers that could be a cure for tuberculosis.

Under the agreement, Calibra will transfer compound CLB073 to Gates MRI for further specialized development.

“Eliminating tuberculosis will require scaling up the world’s existing therapeutic options – which means reducing treatment duration and overcoming drug resistance,” said Case McNamara, PhD, senior director of infectious disease at Calibr. “At Calibre, we are working with collaborators, through support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to discover and develop new drugs for diseases that require improved treatment regimens, such as tuberculosis . We are hopeful that our collaboration with Gates MRI to advance CLB073 will ultimately be able to help the millions of people who are suffering from this deadly disease.

strong ties

Caliber and Scripps Research and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have had a strong relationship since 2014, when the foundation made the first grant to Calibre.

Last year, the Gates Foundation awarded Calibra with a 10-year, $100 million grant renewal for Global Health Initiatives to develop next-generation drugs to address neglected diseases that drive health inequities, such as malaria and tuberculosis. continued his support.

“There are countless diseases that require new and improved treatment options, such as malaria and tuberculosis, and many viruses that could lead to the next pandemic,” said Arnab Chatterjee, vice president of medicinal chemistry at Calibr. “With the continued support of our funding partners, we are able to help fuel a new generation of drugs that show promise in addressing some of today’s most pressing global health threats.”

overcome tuberculosis

Tuberculosis is a major global cause of illness and disability and one of the leading causes of death from an infectious disease worldwide, responsible for an estimated 1.5 million deaths per year.

The disease is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), which has the ability to establish a prolonged infection in the defense cells of the lungs responsible for killing infection with microorganisms.

To develop a drug capable of targeting Mtb in a new way, Calibra scientists collaborated with researchers from the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine and together they discovered and pre-clinically studied CLB073, which is an anti-Mtb inhibitor. Uses a novel mechanism to weaken the ability to survive. Lung cells.

With this new mechanism, CLB073 has the potential to complement the current tuberculosis standard of care with the intention of improving efficacy and shortening the duration of treatment time. This is especially important for multidrug-resistant Mtb, which has been compromised by several frontline drugs.

The most commonly used treatments for drug-sensitive tuberculosis require patients to take multiple drugs over several months with regular clinical monitoring. Patients with drug-resistant forms of the infection may face longer and more complex treatment, often with significant side effects that require increased monitoring.

In preclinical mouse studies, CLB073 significantly increased the effectiveness of the Nix-TB drug regimen – the tuberculosis standard of care for drug-resistant tuberculosis.

The collaborative work with the Cornell researchers was executed through the TB Drug Accelerator, a partnership for tuberculosis drug discovery and development funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Tuberculosis is one of the world’s most important infectious causes of human disease and death,” said Emilio Emini, PhD, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute. “CLB073, discovered by Caliber scientists and now licensed to Gates MRI for further development, may represent a potentially important component of future TB therapeutic regimens.”

Scripps Research

Established: 1924
CEO: Peter Schultz
Occupation: Institute of Medical and Scientific Research
Headquarters: La Jolla
Employees: 2,400+
Revenue: over $320 million (2020)
Website: www.scripps.edu
Notable: Leveraging Scripps Research’s unique scientific framework, Calibr has built a portfolio of drug candidates based on Scripps technologies and is creating a new paradigm for advancing non-profit biomedical research to impact patients Is.