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There seems to be no end to the M&A activity in the pharmaceutical industry. Gilead, recently purchased the contract manufacturer Raylo and now has agreed to purchase Corus in Seattle, WA.

Gilead Exercises Option to Buy Corus for $365M

One of the products that they will acquire in this purchase is aztreonam lysine for inhalation to be used to against Gram-negative bacteria including Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This is common in patients with cystic fibrosis. This website has more information on aztreonam lysine and cystic fibrosis.

Aztreonam by itself is interesting because it came out of work from a major pharmaceutical company where I started my career and back then there was still some development going on for next generation compounds. These are interesting because there are very few monobactams that show anti-bacterial activity.

Wikipedia actually has an entry on aztreonam.

Here’s a link to a paper for a related compound that was being researched back in 1997 entitled

“Antibacterial Activity of BMS-180680, a New Catechol-Containing Monobactam“.
ANTIMICROBIAL AGENTS AND CHEMOTHERAPY, May 1997, p. 1010–1016 Vol. 41, No. 5

Here is the structure of this compound.

Note these have the same monobactam core and only differ in the oxime group. I should also note that the isomer of the oxime is important too, only the isomer show has activity.

Another related paper by some people I use to work with describes an efficent synthesis of azetreonam.

Regioselective Activation of Aminothiazole(iminoxyacetic acid)acetic Acid: An Efficient Synthesis of the Monobactam Aztreonam, Org. Proc. Res. Dev., 2002, 6, 863.

Technorati Tags: antibiotics, Corus, Gilead, monobactam, aztreonam, Raylo

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