SAN DIEGO (AP) – Drug developer Trius Therapeutics Inc. said its potential skin infection treatment tedizolid performed as well as Pfizer Inc.’s Zyvox in a late-stage clinical trial.

Tedizolid is an antibiotic that aims to treat skin infections including MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The San Diego company said the study showed that an oral dose of its drug taken once a day for six days proved to be as effective as a 10-day course of Zyvox taken twice a day and was tolerated better by patients.

Zyvox generated $321 million in third-quarter sales for New York-based Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker.

Trius also is conducting a second late-stage study of tedizolid that will be completed next year, with results announced in 2013. The development-stage drugmaker currently has no products on the market.

Global Hunter Securities analyst Brian Lian found the stock drop puzzling. He said some investors may be concerned because the study results failed to show that tedizolid was superior to Zyvox, but he also noted that the Food and Drug Administration, which will decide whether to approve the drug in the United States, does not require proof of superiority.

“It’s difficult to find anything disappointing in this data set,” he said.

Date: December 19, 2011
Source: Associated Press