The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the additional usage of Allergan plc's Avycaz to treat hospital-acquired infection bacterial pneumonia and ventilator-associated bacterial pneumonia.
This infection is the second-most common type of hospital-originating infection in the U.S., especially within intensive care units.
Avycaz will treat the infection caused by certain gram-negative microbes — Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter cloacae, Escherichia coli, Serratia marcescens, Proteus mirabilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Haemophilus influenzae — in patients 18 years or older.
The drug was first approved in 2015 in the U.S. to treat adults with complicated intra-abdominal infections in combination with metronidazole. In 2017, the drug was approved to treat complicated urinary tract infections, including pyelonephritis, a kidney infection.
Avycaz, a fixed-dose combination of ceftazidime and avibactam, is being jointly developed by Allergan and Pfizer Inc.
Allergan holds the rights to commercialize the drug in North America as Avycaz, while Pfizer markets the combination in the rest of the world as Zavicefta.
