BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - May 05, 2014) - NanoAntibiotics Inc. (OTCQB: NNAB) (the "Company"), a development stage nano-biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of new anti-infective drugs to meet the growing clinical need created by multi-drug resistant bacterial pathogens, is pleased to announce that it has been informed that trading of its stock is to begin on the OTC Markets.
"We are excited to be making our debut in the public marketplace and committed to providing our investors with access to information on the Company," says Rajah Menon, NanoAntibiotics President and Director. "We are constantly advancing towards our goal of creating the world's ultimate weapon against bacteria, the first drug that will solve the bacterial efflux issue. Progress is continuing in the development of our platform that will selectively target and block the efflux pump in variant antibiotic resistant bacteria."
Antibiotic resistance is becoming a worldwide problem as new forms of resistance can cross countries and continents with ease. Each year in the United States, more than 2 million people acquire serious infections with bacteria that are resistant to one or more of the antibiotics designed to treat those infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least 23,000 people die each year as a direct result of these antibiotic resistant infections and many more die from other conditions that were complicated by these infections.
"The development of multi-drug resistant efflux pumps are a major contributor to today's growing epidemic of antibiotic resistance in both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria," comments Dr. Harold Landa, MD., FCCP, a scientific advisor to NanoAntibiotics. "Bacteria use multiple defenses to render antibiotics harmless, including efflux pumps, which transport drugs that actually penetrate the cell back outside of cell walls to protect their nucleus. Utilizing nano-technologies to inhibit efflux pump activity so antibiotics can quickly destroy bacteria has the potential to revitalize the efficacy of many current antibiotics as well as chart a course for new drug discoveries."
Separately, NanoAntibiotics' management would like to provide answers to questions that have been presented as the Company prepared to enter the public domain. The most frequently asked questions are addressed as follows:
Question: Would you please give us a background about NanoAntibiotics?
Answer: NanoAntibiotics was incorporated in April 2013 as a company focused on developing innovative new anti-infective drugs to combat multi-drug resistant bacteria. With our proprietary technology and scientific resources, it was an opportune time to launch the company in the antibiotics sector due to generous federal incentives, changing regulatory framework and growing need to develop alternative therapies to combat antibiotic resistance. It is well known that multi-drug resistant superbugs have become more prevalent and problematic and are becoming a healthcare and financial nightmare here in the USA. Against this backdrop, several large biotech companies are beginning to get back into antibiotics, leaving us in what we believe is an excellent position to advance our compounds and company.
Question: Can you please explain the reason for going public?
Answer: The main reason for going public is to use the capital markets to fund drug development, attract key talent to our company and, lastly, to acquire key technology. I see the success of Cellceutix Corporation, where my father is CEO, and believe that we can achieve rapid growth as well by being a smart and nimble public company. An example of this was their ability to acquire assets from a bankrupt Polymedix, Inc. using cash and stock in bankruptcy court, all accomplished in a short period of time.
Question: Please tell me if you have any affiliation with Cellceutix?
Answer: NanoAntibiotics and Cellceutix are two separate companies that both now happen to be working on antibiotics. NanoAntibiotics was incorporated before Cellceutix had anything to do with Polymedix and antibiotics. I read about the Polymedix bankruptcy and wished at the time that we had the resources to go out and acquire it. Ironically, I guess if NanoAntibiotics would have been established sooner then we ultimately would have been bidding against Cellceutix. I have to give credit to Cellceutix for jumping at the opportunity and successfully acquiring it. Actually, that fits in with our strategy of looking for and acquiring unique technologies that meet our business criteria to grow NanoAntibiotics.
Question: What is NanoAntibiotics' current technology?
Answer: NanoAntibiotics is developing novel nano anti-infective drugs to combat multi-drug resistant bacteria. We are developing a nano efflux pump inhibitor and novel nano antibiotics. I know the first thing that comes to most peoples' mind when using the word "pump" is an actual pump, or some type of extracorporeal medical device. The efflux pump in bacteria is nothing of the sort; it is a matrix of transport proteins involved with removing antibiotics from inside cells. In short, during the pathogenesis of infections, bacteria are able to grow and spread through intrinsic recognition of a drug as foreign and dangerous, triggering a response to "pump" the antibiotic outside its cell walls. The efflux pumps are a key defense mechanism of bacteria that prevents antibiotics from reaching their target and killing it, thus rendering many of today's antibiotics as ineffective. There is quite extensive literature published about this in peer-reviewed medical journals documenting the "learning ability" of bacterium to eliminate drugs from their core. Our Nano Efflux Pump Inhibitor is going after a leading cause of superbug resistance, the ability of bacteria to use their efflux defense.
We are working on making once bacteria-destroying antibiotics effective again. How we are working to do that is by packaging highly purified efflux pump compounds into a nano delivery system, targeting and delivering into the bacteria these large efflux pump inhibitors, effectively stopping the bacteria's drug extrusion ability. These highly purified efflux pump inhibitor compounds that we are researching are proven to not damage mammalian cells. Our goal is to develop a nano efflux pump inhibitor platform that can be easily modified for specific applications for the treatment of bacteria and deadly superbugs.
We have announced successful preliminary laboratory studies on one of our efflux pump inhibitor compounds against certain gram-positive bacteria. Additional studies are ongoing combining our compounds with approved antibiotics against multi-drug resistant bacteria. We look forward to releasing the results of this research in the near future.
Further, we have identified key nano antibiotic compounds from a leading researcher in the field of nanomedicine. We have recently begun studies testing these compounds as well.
Question: Where do you see NanoAntibiotics in the future?
Answer: We already see NanoAntibiotics growing quickly since inception, which we attribute to our innovative compounds and methodology to focus on nano-technology and efflux pump inhibition. We also see an interesting trend where large pharmaceutical companies are licensing compounds that don't necessarily fit their current business model to smaller biotechs, which dovetails with our acquisition and partnering plans. We believe that investors already see the potential as measured by our initial capital raise that was oversubscribed almost immediately. On that point, we feel that we are well positioned to advance our novel compounds from the lab to the clinic and grow into a formidable biotech going forward. There are no FDA approved drugs on the market for efflux pump inhibition, which presents a compelling opportunity. Consider that Mpex Pharmaceuticals partnered with GlaxoSmithKline to develop an efflux pump inhibitor, receiving $8.5 million upfront and a commitment from GSK for commercial milestone payments of up to $250 million for each product candidate in addition to tiered royalties. Our goal is to achieve a similar position in the future.
Bacteria Efflux Pumps:
Bacteria efflux pumps are intrinsic defense mechanisms that expel antibiotics before they reach their target and kill the bacteria. These pumps reside in bacterial cell walls and are a leading cause of multi-drug resistance. There are currently no anti-microbial drugs in use to inhibit the activity of these efflux pumps. There is a need for an effective pump inhibitor which would restore the potency of once effective antibiotics which have been rendered insensitive.
About NanoAntibiotics Inc.
NanoAntibiotics is a developmental stage nano-biotechnology company focused on the development and commercialization of novel therapeutics for multi-drug resistant gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria (also known as Superbugs).
This press release contains forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause NanoAntibiotics' actual results and experience to differ materially from anticipated results and expectations expressed in these forward looking statements. NanoAntibiotics has in some cases identified forward-looking statements by using words such as "anticipates," "believes," "hopes," "estimates," "looks," "expects," "plans," "intends," "goal," "potential," "may," "suggest," and similar expressions. Among other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements are NanoAntibiotics' need for, and the availability of, substantial capital in the future to fund its operations and research and development. The fact that NanoAntibiotics' compounds may not successfully complete pre-clinical or clinical testing, or be granted regulatory approval to be sold and marketed in the United States or elsewhere. A more complete description of these risk factors is included in NanoAntibiotics' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. NanoAntibiotics undertakes no obligation to release publicly the results of any revisions to any such forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by applicable law or regulation.
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