July 1 –deCODE genetics (Reykjavik, Iceland) has formed an alliance with Elitra Pharmaceuticals Inc. (San Diego, CA) to develop new antibiotics that combat drug-resistant bacteria.

deCODE’s pharmaceuticals group, formerly MediChem Life Sciences, has launched a medicinal chemistry program around lead compound series identified by Elitra for use against a promising and currently unexploited bacterial target. This target, selected using Elitra’s proprietary microbial genomics technnology, is protein essential for microbial viability and is highly conserved across gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. It may therefore point the way toward effective and widely-applicable new antibiotics.

The worldwide market for antimicrobial drugs is estimated at more than $30 billion annually. But while drugs like penicillin and tetracycline have revolutionized the treatment of infections, new strains of drug-resistant bacteria and fungi now represent a growing challenge to public health. Decode and Elitra believe that new classes of antimicrobial drugs are needed to meet this challenge.

Under the terms of their three-year, multi-target collaboration (signed last year by Elitra and MediChem; deCODE acquired Medichem in March 2002), both companies retain an ownership interest in compounds developed under the alliance. deCODE is responsible for conducting the medicinal chemistry, protein crystallography, and structure-based drug design work under the alliance and Elitra is responsible for the pre-clinical development of the compounds. deCODE will also handle the development of pharmacogenomic tests designed to group patients into likely responders and non-responders to these drugs based on genetically-determined host factors.