Key Points:
- Blujepa is the first in a new class of oral antibiotics for uUTIs in nearly 30 years
- Over half of all women experience a uUTI in their lifetime, with approximately 30% suffering from recurrent episodes.
- There’s a growing problem with antibiotic resistance which bodes potential danger.
- There’s a potential for Blujep to be approved for treating Gonorrehea.
Last month, the FDA approved gepotidacin (Blujepa; GSK) to treat uncomplicated urinary tract infections (uUTIs) in female patients aged 12 and older, introducing the first new class of oral antibiotics for this condition in nearly 30 years. Blujepa is part of GSK’s infectious diseases portfolio.
“The approval of Blujepa is a crucial milestone with uUTIs among the most common infections in women. We are proud to have developed Blujepa … and to bring another option to patients given recurrent infections and rising rates of resistance to existing treatments,” said.Tony Wood, Chief Scientific Officer, for GSK the developers of Blujepa.
uUTIs are the most common infection in women, impacting up to 16 million women in the US annually. Over half of all women are affected by uUTI in their lifetime, with approximately 30% suffering from at least one recurrent episode.
New treatments are needed since recurrent UTIs have become a growing problem due to antibiotic resistance, meaning some of the drugs that were once used to treat them are no longer effective. Research suggests that 92% of bacteria that cause UTIs are resistant to at least one antibiotic, and nearly 80% are resistant to at least two antibiotics — and that’s raising some red flags.
Antibiotic resistance is a particular issue with uUTIs, because doctors will often prescribe many antibiotics over time to treat these recurrent infections, raising the risk that bacteria will adapt and eventually thwart the medication’s effects.
“Since UTIs often require multiple rounds of antibiotics, they can drive resistance further, making it more likely that other infections — like pneumonia or bloodstream infections — will also become harder to treat,” Daniel Park, senior research scientist at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, told Yahoo Life.
But the problem with antibiotic resistance is bigger than just UTIs. The World Health Organization (WHO) has labeled antibiotic resistance as one of the three greatest threats to global health.Antibiotic resistance can lead to potentially untreatable infections.
Predictive models estimate that more than 39 million people globally could die from antibiotic-resistant infections over the next 25 years, according to a 2024 study published in The Lancet.
Commercial launch of Blujepa is expected in the United States in the second half of this year.
Potential Use for Gonorrhea
As an antibiotic, gepotidacin works by inhibiting bacteria from replicating in the body. Now, there is new hope that gepotidacin may help fight drug-resistant gonorrhea.
Effective treatments for gonorrhea have become increasingly limited in recent years due to the global rise of antimicrobial resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacteria that cause gonorrhea, rendering many previously used first-line antibiotics ineffective.
The current standard of care involves an intramuscular injection of the antibiotic ceftriaxone, which requires a visit to a care facility . A key benefit of gepotidacin is that it would not involve an injection at the doctor’s office, which could make treating gonorrhea more convenient for patients.
“The big takeaway is that having additional treatment options for gonorrhea is fantastic,” said Dr. Jason Zucker, an infectious disease and sexually transmitted infections expert and assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, who was not involved in the new study.
In the United States, gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted infections or STIs have become more common. Reported cases of three nationally notifiable STIs – chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis – were up 90% in the US in 2023 compared with about two decades prior in 2004, according to data released last year by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 2.4 million cases of STIs were reported in 2023 nationally.
What Can People Do On A Personal Level?
Although antibiotic resistance is concerning, there are steps people can take to reduce the risk.
Talk to your doctor about whether an antibiotic is needed. “With mild infections, as most infections are, waiting a while will often show that the infection goes away on its own, so the antibiotic is not even needed,” says Blaser. However, it’s important to talk to your doctor about this since some infections won’t clear up without the right course of antibiotics.
Take antibiotics only when prescribed. It’s important to wait for culture results to make sure that you’re given the right antibiotic for your particular infection, Blaser says.
Finish the entire course of antibiotics. Park says it’s important to complete the full course of antibiotics you’re prescribed, even if you start to feel better before then. “This prevents surviving bacteria from developing resistance,” he says.
Try to purchase meat, poultry and dairy products raised without antibiotics when possible. “This helps reduce overuse of antibiotics in agriculture, which reduces antimicrobial resistance, especially in zoonotic infections where the bacteria spreads from animals to humans,” Park says.