With Warburg Pincus leading the way, Rib-X has landed $20 million in venture capital funding to support development of its antibiotic pipeline. Rib-X's main objective is to begin a Phase IIb study for delafloxacin--a hospital-focused fluoroquinolone antibiotic that for the treatment of resistant infections--and a long-term preclinical safety study of radezolid Gram-positive organisms. Finally, the developer plans to select a development candidate with activity against multi-drug resistant Gram-negative bacteria from its Rc-04 program.
"Through its deep expertise in antibiotics and insights in structure-based drug design around the bacterial ribosome, Rib-X has brought two differentiated products into advanced clinical development and has created a novel antibiotic discovery platform with the capability to target even the most resistant Gram-negative infections," noted Warburg Pincus Managing Director Jonathan Leff. Rib-X's last round of funding came in February 2009, when the company received $25 million from a group of investors, including Warburg Pinctus.