Trius And Scripps Win Defense Contract

Trius Therapeutics and Scripps Institution of Oceanography will work together to develop novel antibiotics against pathogens that could be used as bioweapons. Under a four-and-a-half-year Department of Defense contract worth up to $29.5 million, Trius will screen antibacterial compounds from Scripps’s marine natural product libraries and then deploy its structure-based drug design capabilities to optimize those compounds for use against pathogens such as Yersinia pestis, Francisella tularensis, and Burkholderia pseudomallei. The San Diego-based biotech firm believes the compounds could also prove effective in combating hospital-acquired infections.