Chandigarh-based Venus Remedies, a global pharmaceutical company has launched the US patented drug CSE1034 under the brand name "ELORES" on January 18, 2013 at New Delhi. It is said to be a novel antibiotic adjuvant entity (AAE) to combat antimicrobial resistance caused by multi-drug resistant (MDR), extended spectrum beta lactamase (ESBL) producing strains. Also, it has been found to give outstanding results as it not only kills resistant pathogens, but also halts the spread of resistance.

The product was launched by Dr KN Parsad, associate professor, Department of Microbiology, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow at Manthan 2013, a seminar-cum-workshop organized by the "Venus Medicine Research Centre" (VMRC). The single-session seminar-cum-workshop was chaired by Dr Yatin Mehta, chairman, Medanta Institute of Critical Care and Anesthesiology, Medanta The Medicity, Gurgaon, Haryana which was also attended by the eminent doctors from the healthcare fraternity of India.

According to Dr (Mrs) Manu Chaudhary, joint managing director and director- research, Venus Remedies, "Receiving the US patent for ELORES was a landmark development to initiate the process of commercialization and today we are launching it in India as ELORES." Designed specifically to target growing bacterial resistance mechanisms, ELORES has a unique profile of action which gives it an edge over all the existing therapies. This unique antibiotics adjuvant entity creates a synergistic effect due to its activity on AMRINGER (Acquired Multiple Resistance in Gram Negative Enterococci and Rods) which stops development and spread of bacterial resistance. Dr Chaudhary further added that, "Our product is effective against metallo-beta-lactamases (MBL) producing pathogens which are not susceptible to most of the existing antibiotics.

ELORES comprises of a third generation cephalosporin, a beta lactamase inhibitor along with non antibiotic adjuvant disodium edetate for intravenous administration. It is effective against MDR pathogen producing ESBLs, MBLs like NDM-01, increases cell permeability while working on cell impermeability mechanism of MDRs, regulate "efflux pump over expression", breaks bacterial "biofilms", prevents "transfer of resistant plasmid" and hence the spread of resistance is controlled.

It took almost ten years for the company to develop this breakthrough technology. The company has conducted clinical trials phase I, II and III successfully on a large patient population of 654 patients to prove clinical efficacy and safety in ESBL/MBL resistant pathogens. On an average, the company has spent 10% of its revenue in research and has been investing almost 20% of its R&D expenditure for developing and establishing this technology.

Mr Pawan Chaudhary, chairman and managing director, Venus Remedies said, "ELORES is a novel product with a unique technology specifically addressing the compounding medical emergency of antimicrobial resistance, and thus there is no direct competition as such. However, products like meropenem and pipracillin+tazobactum are the closest in contested category though they are also getting huge resistance."

Furthermore, ELORES has already secured patents from all over the world including countries like US, EU (37 European countries), Australia, and Russia. The company is awaiting registration grant for ELORES with European regulatory bodies to commercialize it there sooner.

Currently, India possesses a huge anti-infective market of around ₹8.5 billion. According to a survey, 40% of the antibiotic sales can be attributed to antimicrobial resistance. Of this, 71.5% of the total antimicrobial resistance market comes from the major resistance segment of ESBLs/ MBL resistance (as per a study by AIIMS). Mr Chaudhary further said, "We want to cater to this segment effectively and immediately and are expecting to capture 10% share of the total AMR market in India in the next 5 years, making it an over ₹2 billion product. Apart from the domestic marketing plans, we are also in talks with leading pharma companies to launch the product in US as well."