Melinta: A Pure-Play Antibiotics Specialist Rises

Melinta Therapeutics Inc. has doubled down in a therapeutic category few drug developers are willing to bet on – antibiotics. After completing a double somersault of acquisitions, Melinta has emerged as a pure-play antibiotics specialist with multiple commercial products, an upcoming launch, and what the company hopes will be the scale to compete in a notoriously challenging commercial market for antibiotics.

Melinta is thus a rare beast in the biopharma sector, where big pharma largely has abandoned the antibiotic space to fledgling start-ups, many of which have buckled under the pressure. Not since Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. was sold to Merck & Co. Inc. in 2014 has there been a notable pure-play antibiotics specialist with a significant commercial presence