Iterum's fu­ture looks un­cer­tain, af­ter lead an­tibi­ot­ic fails con­sec­u­tive piv­otal stud­ies

While the mar­ket for an­tibi­otics re­mains in tat­ters — un­like many of its bank­rupt (or at the brink of bank­rupt­cy) peers — Iterum is suf­fer­ing not be­cause its an­tibi­ot­ic isn’t sell­ing, but be­cause the com­pound has now failed back-to-back late-stage stud­ies.

The ex­per­i­men­tal drug, su­lopen­em, was de­signed to tack­le drug-re­sis­tant in­fec­tions with an out­pa­tient fo­cus (in ad­di­tion to hos­pi­tals), to avert those re­im­burse­ment chal­lenges that in­cen­tivize hos­pi­tals to pre­scribe cheap­er, gener­ic broad-spec­trum an­tibi­otics.

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