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New Drug Telavancin Tops Vancomycin in Patients With MRSA Skin Infections: Presented at ICAAC

By Ed Susman

WASHINGTON, DC -- December 19, 2005 -- A new drug in a similar class as vancomycin -- a last resort antibiotic -- appears to clear up dangerous methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) skin infections more effectively than standard treatment.

"Usually that standard of care is vancomycin," said Martin Stryjewski, MD, attending physician, internal medicine and infectious diseases, Cemic Hospital, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

"Telavancin achieved significantly [P = .04] higher eradication rates in patients infected with MRSA. Although not statistically significant [P = .07], in patients infected with S. aureus, the clinical response rates at test of cure were higher in telavancin-treated patients," Dr. Stryjewski said in his poster presentation December 18^th at the 45^th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC).

Telavancin is a bactericidal lipoglycopeptide now in phase 3 clinical studies.

Dr. Stryjewski and colleagues assigned 100 patients with complicated Gram-positive skin and skin-structure infections to telavancin 10 mg/kg once a day and 95 patients to a standard treatment with 1 of the following regimens: comycin at 1 g every 12 hours, nafcillin or oxacillin 2 g every 6 hours, or cloxacillin 0.5 to 1 g every 6 hours. All were by intravenous administration.

In the entire group, the drugs were similar in their ability to eradicate the infections -- with cure rates of 82% in patients treated with telavancin and 85% in patients treated with standard of care.

When Dr. Stryjewski analyzed the patient groups further, he found that telavancin cured 48 of 59 patients (81.4%) with S. aureus compared with 32 of 41 patients (78.1%) who were treated with standard regimens.

Telavancin cured 92% of 26 patients with S. aureus patients that were methicillin resistant compared with 68% of 19 treated with standard care.

"The overall incidence and severity of adverse events were similar in the telavancin-treated and standard therapy groups," Dr. Stryjewski said.

"The results of this study support further investigation of telavancin for the treatment of serious infections due to resistant Gram-positive pathogens, particularly those caused by MRSA," he said.

Theravance is developing telavancin and sponsored the study.


[Presentation title: Telavancin versus Standard Therapy for Treatment of Complicated Gram-Positive Skin and Skin Structure Infections. Abstract L-1786]

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