New Breakthrough Antibiotic Can Treat Drug-Resistant 'Super Gonorrhoea'
For the first time in 30 years, researchers have discovered a promising new antibiotic treatment for gonorrhoea, a potentially important milestone in the fight against growing antibiotic resistance.
Gonorrhoea is one of several sexually transmitted infections which is fast-gaining resistance to existing antibiotic treatments, making it hard to effectively treat patients with drug-resistant strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacteria responsible for the infection. The infection was listed as a 'high' priority in the World Health Organization's Bacterial Priority Pathogens List, 2024. Between 600,000-700,000 cases of gonorrhoea are diagnosed in the U.S. each year according to the CDC.
'Gonorrhoea has developed resistance to nearly all the antibiotics used for its treatment,' according to the CDC website. 'We are currently down to one last recommended and effective class of antibiotics, cephalosporins, to treat this common infection. This is an urgent public health threat because gonorrhoea control in the United States largely relies on our ability to successfully treat the infection.'
The newly developed treatment, called gepotidacin, may offer a much-needed alternative to standard gonorrhoea therapies, particularly in light of rising global resistance to existing drugs. Just a few weeks ago, gepotidacin was approved by the FDA for the treatment of urinary tract infections in women and children, following positive trial results.
The findings, published in The Lancet and also presented at the 2025 European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) conference in Vienna earlier this week, come from a phase 3 clinical trial involving over 600 patients across six countries including the U.K. and the U.S. Gepotidacin works by stopping bacterial DNA replication, essentially stopping the division and multiplication of bacteria.
Researchers compared gepotidacin, taken orally, to the current standard treatment combination: an injection of ceftriaxone combined with an oral dose of azithromycin. The study concluded that gepotidacin was as effective as the existing treatment combination and importantly, worked against strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae known to be resistant to the currently recommended treatment.
The treatment was found to be safe with no significant side-effects and the authors of the study also note that gepotidacin is only taken orally and could remove the need for an injection, making the treatment more accessible for patients.
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