Shionogi & Co., Ltd. and its European subsidiary, Shionogi B.V. announced that its innovative antibiotic, cefiderocol, is now available in Norway for the treatment of infections due to aerobic Gram-negative bacteria in adults (18 years or older) with limited treatment options. Cefiderocol is available to purchase in Norway through two distributors: Alliance Healthcare and Norsk Medisinaldepot. Since its European Commission approval in 2020, over 23,000 patients in total have now been treated with cefiderocol throughout Europe.

Data from multinational surveillance studies for cefiderocol have demonstrated potent in vitro activity against a broad spectrum of aerobic Gram-negative pathogens including all three WHO critical priority pathogens: carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacterales, as well as Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. Cefiderocol has also demonstrated in vitro activity against certain bacteria that contain very problematic resistant enzymes such as ESBLs, AmpC, serine- and metallo-carbapenemases. Data from three clinical studies: APEKS-cUTI, APEKS-NP, and CREDIBLE-CR support the indication of cefiderocol in adult patients with limited treatment options for the treatment of infections due to aerobic Gram-negative organisms. One of the studies included patients with Gram-negative infections caused by multidrug-resistant pathogens including carbapenem-resistant bacteria from the WHO priority list.

AMR is a major health burden which urgently needs to be addressed. Between 2016 and 2020, a significant increasing trend in the estimated number of antibiotic-resistant infections was observed in Norway, with 2,000 cases in 2020 alone. Infections caused by carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative bacteria are often associated with a high mortality rate, resulting in ~35,000 deaths per year in the EU.

If no action is taken, antibiotic resistance is predicted to kill 10 million people every year globally by 2050, at a cumulative cost to global economic output of USD 100 trillion.