A Pittsburgh biotech company’s developing nonantibotic treatment for the sometimes deadly impact of joint replacement surgery will have a presence this week at a global infectious disease conference that will be held in Portugal this weekend.
By Paul J. Gough – Reporter, Pittsburgh Business Times
Apr 22, 2022, 3:29pm EDT
A Pittsburgh biotech company’s developing nonantibotic treatment for the sometimes deadly impact of joint replacement surgery will have a presence this week at a global infectious disease conference that will be held in Portugal this weekend.
Peptilogics, which is based on the South Side, plans an oral presentation and a poster at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) about its latest findings on PLG0206, an investigational drug candidate that Peptilogics is in the midst of a Phase 1B clinical study. PLG0206 is a specially designed peptide that aims to treat periprosthetic joint infection (PJI), which can be a complication of the joint replacement. About 1 million joint replacements are done annually and, according to some studies, happen in as many 2% of all hip arthroplasties and total knee arthoplasties.
The injection is, in the words of a National Institutes of Health report, “one of the most devastating and costly complications,” as well as a challenge to treat. It can cause death, and antibiotics aren’t effective and treatment is expensive. With an aging population, joint replacements are only going to get more common in the years ahead.
“It’s an infection that’s catastrophic to patients who develop it. It leads to longer hospitalizations, debilitations, more surgeries and also indirect costs like loss of work and time off from work,” said Dr. David Huang, chief medical officer of Peptilogics. “It’s serious and life-threatening, and we believe we have something that could certainly help treat this devastating condition.
Peptilogics’ research finds that PLG0206 is able to tackle gram-positive and gram-negative pathogens as a bactericidal, broad-spectrum treatment.
PLG0206’s ability to be broad spectrum, both gram positive and gram negative, offer it a step up from most antibiotics, and it works against biofilm, the slime that often surrounds bacteria. Unlike antibiotics, there’s very little ability for bacteria to develop resistance to the peptides. And it can be delivered intravenously safely.
PLG0206 is in the Phase 1B trial, a 14-patient study across 10 sites in the U.S., where patients will be enrolled over the next year to confirm the safety, tolerability and efficacy of PLG0206 in people with acute knee PJIs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Peptilogics’ plan in December.
Huang said Peptilogics hopes to enroll the study by the end of 2022 and begin the next phase as early as the end of 2023 or early 2024. The earliest PLG0206 could be approved, if all went well, would be 2026.
Peptilogics in December 2020 closed on $35.4 million in Series B funding, which included Peter Thiel, the cofounder of PayPal.
The company has 31 employees, up sharply from March 2021 when it had only five.
“We’ve grown exponentially over the past year and we’re continuing to grow, especially given the progress we’re making with the platform side of the company,” Huang said.
It’s hiring more scientists, clinicians and computational biology and machine learning experts.