Since the 1940s, antibiotics have been used to treat bacteria-related illness. Antibiotic drugs revolutionized modern medicine with their ability to destroy bad bacteria by lethally targeting entire bacterial populations. Despite their clinical importance, the overuse of antibiotics has put pressure on bacteria to evolve resistance, causing a rapid emergence of antibiotic-resistant infections.

Unfortunately, antibiotics also kill neutral (“commensal”) and beneficial bacteria that reside in the human gut. As pioneers of precision microbiome medicine, Symberix is developing a portfolio of small molecule drugs that selectively eliminate harmful bacterial activity without killing the good bacteria or contributing to antibiotic resistance. Learn more about these "symbiotic drugs" here.