ANN ARBOR – NanoBio Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company, announced Tuesday it has hired Joyce Sutcliffe, Ph.D., as vice president of research. She previously was chief research scientist for Rib-X Pharmaceuticals.
Sutcliffe brings 26 years of experience in the discovery and design of new antibiotics, with particular emphasis on understanding and overcoming antibiotic resistance. During her tenure at Rib-X Pharmaceuticals and previously at Pfizer and Abbott, Sutcliffe focused on leveraging knowledge about target-based resistance to help design novel antibiotics that are potent against organisms with antibiotic resistance. She also led teams that evaluated efficacy and pharmacokinetics in animal disease models to ensure safety and compatibility with other drugs.
?Antibiotic resistance drives the need for new treatments against tenacious infectious microorganisms that continue to mutate,? said Sutcliffe. ?For example the rampant explosion of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) in the community has led to a need for safe anti-infectives. These bacteria are no longer resistant to just antibiotics but have become multidrug-resistant by adding other resistance mechanisms to their armamentarium.
?NanoBio?s deep pipeline of topical anti-infectives and mucosal vaccines is particularly compelling, given the platform technology poses a very low risk of resistance while having broad antimicrobial activity against a wide range of infections,? Sutcliffe said.
NanoBio?s line of anti-infectives are designed to wage a two-pronged attack against bacteria, viruses, and fungi using safe detergents along with high-energy nanoemulsions to physically disrupt pathogen membranes and lyse microbes, said James Baker, Jr., M.D., founder and CSO of NanoBio Corporation. The absence of a specific metabolic target significantly reduces the likelihood of triggering resistant infections.
?The addition of Dr. Sutcliffe, an internationally recognized anti-infective expert, will enable NanoBio to accelerate the number of product candidates we take into the clinic for preventing and treating a wide range of infections,? said Baker.
NanoBio is a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing anti-infective products and mucosal vaccines derived from its patented NanoStat technology platform. The company?s lead product candidates are treatments for herpes labialis (cold sores), onychomycosis (nail fungus), MRSA and mucosal vaccines for influenza and hepatitis B.
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