Today@Dal

From the October 9 edition of the Financial Post:

Q Readers might be surprised to learn that there’s a lack of antibiotics to fight superbugs. What’s the threat?

A If you add up North America and Europe, they kill about 50,000 people a year. Infections caused by superbugs are the third biggest killer behind heart disease and cancer. The incidence of death from heart disease and cancer has been going down over the past 10 years. But the incidence of death from infectious diseases over that period has increased — a lot. We just can’t kill superbugs anymore. For 30 years we’ve been tinkering with the existing drugs, because that approach is much cheaper and faster than developing new drugs. But it’s a stopgap. We’ve now run out of options. That’s why so many people are dying from these things.

Q You’ve had preliminary talks with some pharmaceutical firms. What’s your approach in discussing a possible partnership?

A You don’t want to tip your hand too early. It’s a business, so part of it involves keeping things secret as long as you possibly can. At the same time, you’ve got to give them enough information so they can make a decision. And then there’s the question of when to partner. The earlier you partner the more you get diluted. The further down the development path you can take it, the less you get diluted. We’d likely partner with a big pharmaceutical company early in phase two. But we’d prefer to take it even further if we could.

Read the rest of the interview at the Financial Post website.