A radical solution to anti-microbial resistance
Helperby Therapeutics is providing novel solutions to resistant infections with new combinations of already approved drugs, highly active against already resistant bacteria
Helperby Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing treatments for WHO Critical and High Priority pathogens at costs which can be used worldwide.
Based in London, UK, Helperby was founded by Prof Sir Anthony Coates as a spinout from St. Georges Hospital, University of London, based on his extensive research in anti-infectives.
His work developing combination therapies, still used against tuberculosis today, was leveraged to deal with the increasing threat of anti-microbial resistance (AMR), as bacteria became increasingly resistant to single agent antibiotics (such as MRSA) and further AMR species developed quickly, giving fewer and fewer treatment options.
Prof Coates saw the opportunity to apply his experience with combinations to a growing new field and Helperby Therapeutics was born and is today the only company developing new combinations of already approved antimicrobials against common bacterial infections.
Selectively designed combinations of already approved antibiotics showed synergistic activity, 100s or even 1,000s fold more effective than the single antibiotics alone and were able to treat already highly AMR species, which have few or even no treatment options.
The higher activity allowed use of lower doses of drugs where side-effects limit their use as single agents requiring higher and higher doses from AMR. For example, colistin can be used at less than 1/3rd of recommended dose today, giving colistin levels below those producing unwanted effects, yet significantly higher bacterial kill, including colistin-resistant strains untreatable by any other agent.
HY001 Helperby’s lead product has confirmed this in Ph I human studies.
Helperby have a significant patent portfolio, combining two or more approved anti-infectives of different types, active against a range of WHO Critical and High Priority pathogens.
Core Values
How Helperby aims to enhance Antibiotic Stewardship
The fundamental sentiment of Antibiotic Stewardship is that antibiotics are a precious and finite resource which must be used responsibly with three main goals of Antibiotic Stewardship:
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Optimise therapy for individual patients
Helperby’s new combination treatments for highly resistant, difficult to treat bacterial infections gives clinicians the option of effective treatment with a lower dose of already approved and proven drugs, thereby reducing side-effects and “rejunvenating “ safe and effective but unusable drugs as AMR developed vs. the single drug alone
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Prevent overuse, misuse and abuse
By using rational combinations of antibiotics, it will be feasible to reduce the emergence of resistance. This approach has been successfully used in other infections such as tuberculosis and AIDS.
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Minimise development of resistance at patient and community levels
As AMR to single antibiotics is inevitable, and increases in rate as single drugs are used more, Helperby’s combining of synergistic anti-infectives protects approved and proven drugs, often last resort antibiotics by making it many orders of magnitude harder for resistance to develop than single antibiotic. This allows effective drug combinations to be used widely rather than prevented from use only as last resort due to AMR
These values, which ensure that medical/surgical care can continue to rely on effective antibiotics into the future, was the reason Helperby was founded.