Vibativ (telavancin) displays more punch against the Staphylococcus aureus bacteria that is involved in lung diseases than other antibiotics it has been tested against, according to presentations in San Diego this month.
This includes drug-resistant strains of the bacteria, its developer, Theravance Biopharma, reported. The company discussed the findings at IDWeek 2017, Oct. 4-8.
One presentation was on a study that dealt with Vibativ’s effectiveness against S. aureus bacteria taken from 15,000 patients. The bacteria included two antibiotic-resistant strains — methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA). MRSA is the underlying cause of acute pulmonary exacerbations in cystic fibrosis and severe pneumonias.
Vibativ was able to counter all of the 15,000 isolates of bacteria, including MRSA and MSSA. Researchers used a U.S. Food and Drug Administration scale to determine the bacteria’s susceptibility to Vibativ — that is, the therapy’s ability to counter the pathogens.
Two other presentations at the conference covered a clinical trial’s results. The ongoing Telavancin Observational Use Registry (TOUR) study (NCT02288234) is evaluating Vibativ’s effectiveness in real-world treatment settings.
Sixty-five to 73 percent of patients with bone and joint infections, bacteremia or infective endocarditis responded to Vibativ, according to the trial results so far. Bacteremia is a bacterial infection in blood. An infective endocarditis is an infection in the lining of the heart.
Vibativ is a once-a-day, injectable lipoglycopeptide. The FDA has approved it for treating adults with hospital-acquired and ventilator-associated bacterial pneumonia (HABP/VABP) S. aureus when no alternatives are available.
In the study that involved the 15,000 isolates, researchers looked at Vibativ and several other antibiotics’ ability to counter S. aureus samples collected between 2014 and 2016. The research was done in a lab.
Vibativ was better at fighting the bacteria than Vancocin (vancomycin), Cubicin (daptomycin) and Zyvox (linezolid), the study showed. This included multidrug-resistant bacteria.
Researchers used a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) scale to determine the antibiotics’ potency. An MIC is the lowest amount of a drug that can prevent a bacteria from multiplying. The amount of Vibativ needed to stop the bacteria from growing was eight times lower than that of the other antibiotics, showing how much more potent it is, researchers said.
“The VIBATIV potency advantages seen against multidrug-resistant pathogens are particularly important based on the fact that this study also demonstrated that multidrug-resistant MRSA rates have increased over the three years evaluated,” Christine Slover, Theravance’s director of medical affairs, said in a press release. “This trend further highlights the growing threat of antibiotic resistance and the need for potent antibiotics with rapid bactericidal activity to combat the most challenging pathogens in today’s healthcare environment.”
“The data presented in this study showing greater in vitro [lab-setting] potency for VIBATIV, compared to several well-known competitor antibiotics, are consistent with other research results that we have presented at scientific conferences over the past few years,” Slover said. “We believe that these data highlight a critical competitive advantage for VIBATIV in the treatment of S. aureus in the product’s approved indications [diseases it can be used against], particularly those that are most challenging to treat.”