What is "brilacidin"

Brilacidin (formerly PMX-30063) an investigational new drug (IND), is a polymer-based antibiotic currently in human clinical trials and represents a completely new class of antibiotics called host defense protein mimetics, host defense peptide mimetics, or HDP-mimetics, which are non-peptide (or peptide?) synthetic small-molecules modeled after host defense peptides (HDP). HDP, also called antimicrobial peptides, some of which are defensins, are part of the innate immune response and are common to most higher forms of life. As brilacidin is modelled after a defensin, it is also called a defensin mimetic.

Brilacidin is thus an antibiotic that works by disrupting bacterial cell membranes, mimicking defensins that play a role in innate immunity. Several mimics of antimicrobial peptides have been researched, both peptides and non peptides, but none have overcome difficulties to reach the market.