Malvern-based VenatoRx Pharmaceuticals has teamed with a Swiss pharmaceutical company to work on a new class of antibiotics that would address the growing threat of “superbugs” that can circumvent existing treatments, writes John George for the Philadelphia Business Journal.

The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the partnership.

Under the agreement, VenatoRx and Roche will collaborate to discover and develop new small molecule inhibitors of the penicillin-binding proteins found in gram-negative bacteria. Their main focus will be on agents that are active against carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales. These are germs that have managed to develop resistance to the antibiotics group called carbapenems, currently considered as the last-resort drug against these infections.

Combating Enterobacterales has been listed as a top priority by the World Health Organization on its ranking of antibiotic-resistant pathogens that urgently need new antibiotics. VenatoRx is currently developing a novel class of “non-beta-lactam” molecules that are capable of killing such bacteria.

According to Christopher J. Burns, VenatoRx CEO, the company’s new class of antibiotics “has the potential to usher in a new wave of antibacterial therapeutics and reset the clock on antimicrobial resistance.”

Read more about VenatoRx Pharmaceuticals in the Philadelphia Business Journal.