Study Shows Gepotidacin Is Effective Against Gonorrhea

NBC News (4/14, Lovelace Jr.) reports a study suggests a new antibiotic pill “developed by GSK was found to be safe and effective in treating gonorrhea in a late-stage clinical trial.” Researchers said that gepotidacin “is part of a new class of antibiotics called triazaacenaphthylenes, which work by targeting two key enzymes that gonorrhea needs to copy itself and survive.” They found that “gepotidacin was shown to successfully treat about 92% of patients when taken twice daily, compared with about 91% in a group of patients who got a standard treatment.” Crucially, the study authors wrote that “the pill was effective against strains of gonorrhea bacteria that are resistant to existing antibiotics.” The study was published in The Lancet.