New C. difficile drug approved

Fidaxomicin, the new drug we discussed here, was just approved by the FDA for treatment of Clostridium difficile disease. Price is still not available, but I agree that it is likely to cost at least as much as brand-name oral vancomycin (the parenteral formulation of vancomycin can be formulated for oral use much more cheaply, a practice that is now common). If it is that expensive, fidaxomicin probably will be reserved for recurrent disease (the clinical trial demonstrated equivalence for treatment response, the benefit of fidaxomicin was in reduced recurrence rates among patients with non-NAP1/BI strains).

Photo: Dr. Sherwood Gorbach, Chief Scientific Officer at Optimer Pharmaceuticals. Sandy Huffaker/New York Times