I found a short snippet from the Wharton School of Business. The article addresses Wharton’s 2010 Business Plan Competition.
One of the teams in the article is called R2R Therapeutics. The motivation for the team was 2nd year Wharton MBA student Bee Rhee who almost lost his wife due to a bacterial infection that occurred after the removal of his wife’s wisdom teeth. His wife was given antibiotics and they were able to stop the infection and she is currently alive today. However this business plan from this team does highlight a growing concern in healthcare which has to do with bacterial which is becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics.
R2R Therapeutics’ goal is to combat these drug resistant bacteria by focusing on a novel cationic steroid antibiotic called R2R-1 which will work to disrupt the cell membrane and kill the bacteria. The effect would be to have the bacteria mutate and change less often and thus be less resistant to causing deadly infections such as what could potentially occur after the extraction of wisdom teeth.
The article states
So far, the team reported that R2R-1 appears to be resistant to resistance, safe and highly potent. Using technology discovered at the University of Pennsylvania, the group’s plan involves operating as a virtual company, outsourcing as much as possible to keep operating costs low, and hiring a CEO and CFO to take the company forward.
I wish this team success and would like to see drug and pharmaceutical companies more focused on providing antibiotics that can help prevent bacteria from mutating and becoming resistant to drugs.