BioDiem's BDM-I presented at antimicrobial meet

Results from an antifungal study of BioDiem’s (ASX:BDM) antimicrobial BDM-I have been presented at this year’s Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

The results, presented at the conference in a poster, were generated through the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ (NIAID) In Vitro Assessment for Antimicrobial Activity Service.

Professors Melanie Cushion and Thomas Patterson tested BDM-I’s activity against nearly 70 opportunistic or hospital-acquired fungi that can cause serious infection.

BDM-I demonstrated activity against several Cryptococcus species as well as endemic fungi such as Blastomyces dermatitidis, Coccidioides immitis/posadasii and Histoplasma capsulatum.

On the strength of the results, BioDiem is conducting more studies to determine the effectiveness and optimal dose of the antimicrobial in a mouse model of Pneumocystis, a yeast-like fungus that can cause pneumonia in patients with weakened or compromised immune systems.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the incidence of Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) in the US to be 9% among hospitalised HIV/AIDS patients and 1% among solid organ transplant recipients.

“The presentation of the data at this international conference and the progression of evaluation of BDM-I’s antifungal activity to studies in an animal model of Pneumocystis infection is a significant step forward for BDM-I’s development program towards use in difficult-to-treat infections,” BioDiem CEO Julie Phillips said.

In February, BioDiem revealed it had expanded its research agreement with NIAID to cover evaluation of BDM-I in the fungal infections as well as in tuberculosis.

BioDiem (ASX:BDM) shares were trading unchanged at $0.04 as of around 9.30 am on Thursday.