What happened
Shares of Paratek Pharmaceuticals (PRTK) flew nearly 20% higher on Tuesday, on an otherwise forgettable day for the stock market. There was little mystery why -- the company won another approval for its next-generation antibiotic Nuzyra.
So what
Paratek announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved its supplemental New Drug Application (NDA) for the oral-only formulation of Nuzyra to treat adults suffering from community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP), a lung disease.
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Previously, the FDA had approved Nuzyra in 2018 as a once-per-day oral and intravenous treatment for CABP, in addition to acute bacterial skin skin and skin structure infections (ABSSI).
The regulator's new approval means that the drug can be far more easily administered, and therefore more quickly deployed to patients.
In its press release trumpeting the latest green light for its drug, Paratek quoted its chief commercial officer Adam Woodrow as saying "The approval of an oral-only dose regimen for Nuzyra in pneumonia represents a significant opportunity to offer clinicians the ability to treat patients in either the outpatient or primary care setting."
"Treating in this way potentially reduces or eliminates hospitalizations and the associated risk and costs from a hospital stay," Woodrow added.
Now what
It's almost always good news, both for the biotech that developed it and the patients that will be treated for its target affliction, when a much easier treatment regime of a drug is approved. Nuzyra should see a commensurate rise in sales following the FDA's latest nod.
