Acurx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Acurx Pharmaceuticals is a late-stage biopharmaceutical company that develops a new class of small molecule antibiotics for difficult-to-treat bacterial infections. The company's strategy involves creating antibiotic candidates with a Gram-positive selective spectrum (GPSS®) that block the active site of the Gram-positive specific bacterial enzyme deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) polymerase IIIC (pol IIIC). This action inhibits DNA replication, leading to Gram-positive bacterial cell death. Acurx Pharmaceuticals' research and development (R&D) pipeline includes antibiotic product candidates targeting Gram-positive bacteria such as Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin resistant Enterococcus (VRE), drug-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae (DRSP), and B. anthracis (anthrax; a Bioterrorism Category A Threat-Level pathogen). These bacterial targets are identified as priority pathogens by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States (U.S.) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), requiring new antibiotics to address antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The CDC estimates that, in the U.S., antibiotic-resistant pathogens infect one individual every 11 seconds and result in one death every 15 minutes. According to the WHO Fact Sheet (November 2023), bacterial AMR was directly responsible for 1.27 million global deaths in 2019 and contributed to 4.95 million deaths. The company believes it is developing the first DNA pol IIIC inhibitor ready to enter Phase 3 clinical trials and has clinically validated the efficacy of its lead pol IIIC antibiotic candidate in a Phase 2 clinical trial. Pol IIIC is the primary catalyst for DNA replication of several Gram-positive bacterial cells.