Science rewriting rules on germs, DNA
New antibiotic is fresh weapon against bugs

SAN FRANCISCO -- An antibiotic designed from scratch to attack germs in an entirely new way has proven effective in human tests and should soon give doctors a fresh weapon against drug-resistant bacteria.

Developers of the medicine, called Zyvox, say it is the first example of what they call the first new class of antibiotics in more than three decades. The drug appears effective against bugs that have grown resistant to all other medicines, including vancomycin, now the drug of last resort for lingering infections."There is a crying need for new antibiotics" for use against common but potentially deadly infections, said Dr. Jack Remington of Stanford University. Zyvox "is the first new antibiotic in the world in 35 years."

Zyvox works only against gram-positive bacteria, so-called because of the way they turn purple when stained. More than half of all serious infections treated in hospitals worldwide are gram positive. These include staph, strep and enterococci bacteria that cause pneumonia and infections of the skin, bloodstream and urinary tract, among other things.

Often these infections are caught while patients are in the hospital for other things. They tend to be resistant to many of the standard antibiotics in use since the 1950s.

About 5,000 patients have been treated so far with Zyvox, most of them in a variety of studies. However, the drug has also been given to 550 patients who could not use other antibiotics. Dr. Carol Kauffman of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. said the drug cleared up the infection in three-quarters of them.

Zyvox is likely to be reserved for particularly ill patients, especially those with bugs resistant to older drugs. It will join another new antibiotic, Synercid, which was approved by the FDA last week.