Drugs under preclinical and clinical testing for the treatment of infections caused due to staphylococcus aureus: An update

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus is a significant pathogen of interest worldwide owing to its increasing drug resistance and dwindling antimicrobial armamentarium available against it. Although it typically causes uncomplicated infections, recently increasingly it has been linked to serious community and nosocomial infections ranging from boils to bloodstream infections to endocarditis. Even though there are a number of antibiotics available for the treatment of uncomplicated S. aureus infections, the advent of drug resistance has complicated the picture due to decreasing options available for the treatment coupled with increased transmission of drug-resistant strains in the community. Even though the drug discovery pipeline has recently been augmented with the discovery of some new molecules active against S. aureus, the true status is anemic owing to lack of molecules acting via new mechanism of action. This chapter describes the various molecules which are in preclinical and clinical development against S. aureus and depicts the various challenges as well as lacunae in them.