visIon

StaphOff Biotech, Inc. is an innovative pharmaceutical company dedicated to development of medical products which prevent or stop resistant Staphylococcal infections.

StaphOff Biotech, Inc. is developing a TOTALLY UNIQUE approach to fighting Staph infections using a first in class molecule termed CEN-101 and its analog CEN-103. Unlike antibiotics, CEN-101 & CEN-103 do not kill the bacteria; rather they weaken their ability to resist the body’s immune system defenses and the killing power of traditional antibiotics. These molecules cause the bacteria not to communicate with one another, not to form biofilms, not to produce flesh eating toxins, and thus allow the body’s own immune system or traditional antibiotics to more effectively combat the infection.

Staphylococcal toxins are major contributors to the disease process:  

S. aureus produce many different virulence factors or toxins that cause disease. For example, surface proteins that promote colonization of host tissues and formation of biofilm; Invasins (leukocidin, proteases, hyaluronidase) that promote the spread of bacteria in tissues; Surface factors (capsule, Protein A) that inhibit bacterial capture by immune cells; Membrane-damaging toxins (hemolysins, leukotoxin, leukocidin) that puncture human cell membranes, thereby causing cell damage and/or death; Exotoxins (SEs, TSST) that damage host tissues and cause symptoms of disease like fever, inflammation, low blood pressure, and circulatory collapse. Given the diversity and number of different factors secreted by bacteria, efforts to inhibit their production have largely been limited to destruction of the bacteria itself, through the use of bactericidal antibiotics.  The presence of highly drug-resistant bacteria, however, perpetuates the major medical need for new agents that fight disease through the inhibition of production of virulence factors. Our platform technology, which includes CEN-101, CEN-103, and many others, have been shown to prevent toxin production by turning off genes responsible for their expression.

Bacterial colonies or biofilms are more resistant to antibiotics and represent the cause of 80% of all bacterial infections. 

Bacteria are known to exist in two different states: the free-floating (planktonic) state and biofilm state. In recent years, the medical and scientific communities have increasingly recognized the importance of biofilms in medicine. Biofilm is a cooperative community of surface-associated bacteria that frequently colonize, infect, and leads to the failure of implantable medical devices and cause resistant persistent infections. Importantly, compared to their free-floating counterparts, biofilm bacteria have an enhanced ability to survive and proliferate in infected hosts, and have reduced susceptibility to antibiotics and host immune defense mechanisms. Chronic wounds are often infected with a biofilm of staphylococci along with other gram positive and gram-negative bacteria. CEN-101 and CEN-103 have been shown to prevent or treat biofilm-associated infections.

The success of a biofilm as an adaptive mechanism for bacteria depends in large part on how bacteria communicate and coordinate behavior with one another via signaling molecules.  This is a process known as Quorum Sensing.

CEN-101 Platform Technology blocks staph cell-to-cell communication (Quorum Sensing, “QS”) as well as stress response, which are important to biofilm formation and toxin production. CEN-101 and CEN-103 stop the infectious process and in doing so have also been reported to stop the pain involved.

The various forms of CEN-101 and CEN-103 (systemic and topical) can be used either to prevent or to stop the progress of infections.  Once CEN-101 or CEN-103 is introduced to the bacterial colony or biofilm, the bacteria stop communicating and the biofilm breaks down.  In this planktonic state the individual bacteria are much less able to resist the body’s immune system or traditional antibiotics. Indeed, both CEN-101 and CEN-103 have been shown to enhance the effect of antibiotics.