British company developing nasal gel MRSA drug

LONDON, May 18 (Reuters) - British researchers are working on a new drug, which is placed as a gel in the nose, that may offer new hope in the fight against the hospital superbug MRSA.

Destiny Pharma, a privately owned biotechnology company in Brighton, said on Sunday its experimental drug XF-73 had destroyed virulent strains of MRSA in laboratory studies, without any signs of resistance developing.

"Results suggest that XF-73's remote resistance profile may allow widespread MRSA decolonisation in hospitals to support national initiatives for effective infection control," it said in a statement.

Tests found that methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria did not develop resistance to the medicine, despite being exposed to it 55 times.

The drug works in a different way to conventional antibiotics. It interacts lethally with the bacteria's cell membrane, giving bugs less opportunity to develop pathways to escape its effect.

Destiny, which has completed initial Phase I clinical trials, presented its findings to the European Congress on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Barcelona last month.

Chief Executive Bill Love said he anticipated XF-73 would generate "a huge amount of interest" from major pharmaceutical companies looking to license in novel antibacterials. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Jason Neely)