SCYNEXIS Offers Data Showing Support for Activity of SCY-078 Against Antifungal-Resistant Candida Strains

Drug development company SCYNEXIS, Inc.

announced today that results of three nonclinical studies of the company's lead clinical drug candidate, SCY-078, were presented at the 13th American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Conference on Candida and Candidiasis held in Seattle, WA. The results of these in vitro microbiology studies of SCY-078, a novel glucan synthesis inhibitor currently in Phase 2 development as a treatment for invasive fungal infections, included the following: SCY-078 was active against more than 90% of fluconazole-resistant Candida spp. isolates. More than 200 individual strains (most of them C. glabrata) were included in this testing, conducted at three independent laboratories. We believe that this result suggests that SCY-078 is a promising orally bioavailable antifungal agent for the treatment of patients with fluconazole-resistant Candida spp. infections; Moreover, we believe that SCY-078 demonstrated superior activity as compared to caspofungin and micafungin against Candida glabrata isolates harboring fks mutations. Mutations in the fks genes are associated with decreased susceptibility to echinocandins. SCY-078 was active against 69% of the C.glabrata isolates with fks mutations whereas caspofungin and micafungin were active against 20% and 44% of the isolates, respectively. We believe that this data suggests that SCY-078 may be a suitable option for the treatment of infections caused by echinocandin-resistant C. glabrata strains. SCY-078 showed activity against 75% and 71% of multi-drug resistant (MDR) Candida albicans and glabrata strains, respectively. MDR was defined in this study as Candida strains resistant to both fluconazole and an echinocandin. We believe that this result suggests that SCY-078 may be a suitable option for the treatment of infections caused by azole- and echinocandin- resistant C. albicans and C. glabrata strains; We believe that these results are supportive of further development of SCY-078 for the treatment of invasive candidiasis, including those infections caused by azole- and echinocandin-resistant strains which are rapidly becoming a major public health problem. "The nonclinical results presented at this year's ASM Conference on Candida and Candidiasis support the potential broad clinical utility of SCY-078 against Candida infections, and offers hope for a new and efficacious oral and intravenous treatment option for these life threatening infections," said Marco Taglietti, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of SCYNEXIS. "We believe that the need for a new class of anti-fungal agents is more apparent now than ever before as resistance continues to rise, and these results suggest that SCY-078 may prove useful in the fight against drug-resistant pathogens." Note: In these experiments resistance to caspofungin, micafungin and fluconazole was determined according to the CLSI guidelines. Resistance to SCY-078 was defined as isolates having an MIC value ≥4-fold that of wildtype.