Roche forges deal with San Diego biotech, bet­ting on new an­tibi­ot­ic class

The coro­n­avirus out­break may be mo­nop­o­liz­ing the air­waves, but that doesn’t mean the tsuna­mi of an­tibi­ot­ic re­sis­tance isn’t still in­com­ing.

But there is some en­cour­ag­ing progress, de­spite the ma­jor­i­ty of big phar­ma aban­don­ing the be­lea­guered field of an­tibi­otics. On Wednes­day, Roche tied up with San Diego-based Forge Ther­a­peu­tics in a re­search pact, which gives the Swiss drug­mak­er the op­tion to li­cense an ex­per­i­men­tal an­tibi­ot­ic be­ing de­vel­oped for use in se­ri­ous lung in­fec­tions.

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