A UB team led by Francesc Rabanal, tenured university lecturer at the Department of Organic Chemistry of the Faculty of Chemistry, has synthesised and developed one of the seven compounds that have reached the final phase of the ENABLE (European Gram Negative Antibacterial Engine) project. This is a programme funded by the IMI (Innovative Medicines Initiative) with the aim to develop new antibiotics for the treatment of infectious diseases caused by resistant and multi-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. A total of forty-seven European universities and companies, led by the pharmaceutical multinational GlaxoSmithKline and Uppsala University, are part of this ambitious consortium, which has a budget of eighty-five million euros and it involves twelve European countries.
Since its launch in 2014, ENABLE has evaluated twenty-five molecules synthesised at the top European research centres. The promising drug developed by the UB is based on a natural compound from the polymyxin family, an antibiotic naturally produced by the bacterium Paenibacillus polymyxa.
