Paratek Pharmaceuticals to Expand Malaria Program Under Two-Year NIH Phase II SBIR Grant

    BOSTON, July 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced
 today the initiation of the next phase of the Company's program to develop
 tetracycline-derived antimalarial therapeutics for treatment and prophylaxis
 of malaria.  Under a Phase II Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant
 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),
 Paratek will receive approximately $1 million for each of two years to develop
 oral agents against Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite responsible for the
 most common and deadly form of malaria.
     The Phase II grant was awarded to Paratek as a result of earlier studies
 demonstrating the potential for the development of improved tetracycline-based
 compounds for use in the fight against malaria. These earlier studies were
 conducted in collaboration with Dr. Philip Rosenthal, Director of Pediatric
 Hepatology and a professor of Pediatrics and Surgery at the University of
 California, San Francisco.  The focus of the proposed studies under the Phase
 II grant will be to further optimize the compounds with the goal of selecting
 preclinical candidates at the end of the two years.
     According to Dr. Michael Draper, Associate Director at Paratek,
 "Tetracyclines are already an important class of drug in the fight against
 malaria, yet their broad-spectrum antibacterial activity is a disadvantage
 that potentially contributes to the problem of antibacterial resistance.  By
 applying innovative chemistries to minimize the antibacterial effects and
 improve the antimalarial potency of compounds, we have been able to create
 novel tetracyclines that are optimized for use in non-bacterial conditions
 like malaria."
     Malaria infects an estimated 300 to 500 million people around the world.
 P. falciparum infections, in particular, kill more than one million annually,
 mostly young children and pregnant women.  Just as numerous bacterial
 pathogens are outwitting the latest antibiotics, so too are malarial parasites
 increasingly resistant to available medications.
 
     About Paratek Pharmaceuticals
     Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is engaged in the discovery and
 commercialization of new therapeutics that treat serious and life-threatening
 diseases, with a particular focus on the growing worldwide problem of
 antibiotic resistance.  Paratek's lead programs are advancing novel compounds
 that can circumvent or block bacterial resistance, as well as drugs that can
 prevent infection by interfering with Multiple Adaptational Response (MAR)
 mechanisms in bacteria.  Out of these efforts, Paratek has discovered a new
 class of antibiotics, the aminomethylcyclines that target the need for new and
 potent antibacterials to overcome the problem of rapidly growing bacterial
 resistance.  The Company's lead antibiotic clinical candidate, PTK 0796/BAY
 73-7388, the first product from this class, is being developed in a
 collaborative partnership with Bayer HealthCare AG.
     Outside the antibacterial therapeutic area, Paratek has also established
 an internal effort to exploit its novel families of compounds and their unique
 mechanism of action in selected anti-inflammatory and neurodegenerative
 conditions.  Paratek has an active chemical synthesis effort to produce novel
 and diverse small molecules, with the goal of developing non-antibacterial
 products with improved activity in serious diseases based upon a growing body
 of clinical and basic research supporting this approach.
 
     Paratek is privately held and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
 For more information, visit Paratek's website at http://www.paratekpharm.com.
 
 

SOURCE  Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc.