PolyCides are synthetic antimicrobial compounds that mimic the mechanism of the host defense proteins and are being developed as additives to materials and products which make them self-sterilizing.
The PolyCide materials, like PolyMedix’s antibiotic PMX-30063 which is currently in a Phase 2 clinical trial for the treatment of Staphylococcus infections, are synthetic mimetics of the host-defense proteins, and employ the same mechanism of action that directly and selectively targets and disrupts the bacterial cell membrane.
The results were presented by PolyMedix Research vice president Richard Scott who demonstrated that the PolyCide compounds have broad spectrum activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens associated with surgical site infections, and have bacterial killing activity over triclosan and silver nitrate, another commonly used biocidal agent.
Scott said these data support their efforts to expand the use of PolyCide compounds to other wound care applications and medical devices to improve infection control.
The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation to support the development of antimicrobial sutures (NSF SBIR Award 1013835).
