Bacteria are everywhere. Most are harmless. Some are beneficial to humans such as Lactobacillus acidophilus which occurs in your gut, helps you digest your food, destroys disease-causing organisms and releases important nutrients. Others help us produce cheeses, yoghurts, and sourdough breads. Less than one percent of the currently known bacteria can make you sick. Infectious or pathogenic bacteria such as the ESKAPE pathogens [1] are responsible for millions of infected patients and tens of thousands of deaths each year.

Antibiotic resistance in bacteria occurs naturally through evolution where mutations in the bacteria’s genes create resistance. However, the widespread and long-term misuse of antibiotics against viral infections and in animal feed has promoted the development of multidrug resistant strains (MDR bacteria) which are resistant to three or more classes of antimicrobial drugs. MDR bacteria pose a serious threat to human and animal health. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has published a list of “priority pathogens”, 12 families of antibiotic resistant bacteria [2] that pose the greatest threat to human health and called for the rapid development of new antimicrobials capable of treating these priority pathogens. In many cases, MDR bacteria are transmitted through the use of medical devices.

ChainPeptides Oy is developing antimicrobial products based on our proprietary Chain Peptide technology platform that can prevent the spread of healthcare acquired bacterial infections. Chain peptides are short chain, fully synthetic, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) which are tolerant to proteolytic degradation, pH, temperature and salt. Chain peptides are proven to be efficacious against a wide range of pathogenic gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria and can kill the ESKAPE group of infectious bacteria.