We made the first new antimicrobial compounds to emerge for nearly 40 years. This is a new inorganic chemistry platform capable of creating powerful antimicrobial agents for pharmaceutical drugs, medical devices, and material coatings and additives.

Why does it matter?

Antibiotics are medicines used to prevent and treat infections caused by bacteria. Resistance arises when the bacteria change in response to the use of these medicines rendering the treatment ineffective. 

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is rapidly becoming one of the biggest threats to global health. It is already responsible for 1.2 million deaths per year globally and within the United States it has been calculated 1 patient dies every 15 minutes from an AMR infection. 

A recent review commissioned by the UK Government and carried out by economist Professor Jim O’Neill, predicted that by 2050, untreatable infections will:

  • have a higher global mortality rate than cancer,

  • cause 10 million deaths per year (1 death every 3 seconds)

  • result in a £66 trillion loss to the global economy annually.

No new class of antibiotics has reached the clinic in over 30 years, therefore the need for new, effective treatments has been highlighted as an urgent priority by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

MetalloBio was incorporated in March 2021 as a spin-out company from the University of Sheffield. Our focus is on the development of two lead compounds that represent a groundbreaking new class of antibiotics, with the aim of addressing the growing issue of antimicrobial resistance. 

Current ‘gold standard’ clinical antibiotics are failing, with emergence of resistance being associated with even current last line treatments such as carbapenem. 

World Health Organisation have stated failure to address the problem will result in a post-antibiotic era.

Antimicrobial resistance causes:

  • Prolonged treatment and hospital stays

  • Lower patient quality of life

  • Increased mortality rate 

  • Higher medical costs 

In addition, last line antibiotics like vancomycin, used when other drugs fail, can have serious side effects such as nephrotoxicity (toxicity in the kidneys). 

The rate of AMR is rising with new resistance mechanisms emerging and spreading globally. The World Health Organisation (WHO) have stated failure to address the problem will result in a post-antibiotic era. This threatens our ability to kill common germs meaning a routine hip replacement surgery could lead to a potentially life threatening infection.

Priority Pathogens

In an attempt to tackle antimicrobial resistance the WHO have published a list of “priority pathogens” – these are 12 families of bacteria that pose the biggest risk to human health and urgently require new antimicrobials to combat them.

Importantly: 

  • Gram-negative bacteria, which exhibit multi-drug resistance to last line antibiotics are of the highest concern. Most new antibiotics in clinical development are more active on Gram-positive bacteria. 

  • All new antimicrobials brought to market in the past 30 years have been variations on existing drugs for which resistance is rapidly emerging - there has not been a new class of antimicrobials invented for decades, highlighting the need to explore new chemical spaces. 

Our Solution

MetalloBio’s novel compounds have activities comparable to or higher than clinically available drugs and retain this high activity in multi and pan-drug resistant strains of both Gram-positive and negative bacteria with little to no emergence of resistance. This means that ultimately, new treatments based on our technology could be used to treat a range of both common and complex infections.