Therapeutic Focus

While the company’s long-term vision is to improve treatment paradigms for a variety of infectious diseases with new antibiotics, the company’s initial development efforts focused on diagnostic and therapeutic products for tuberculosis (TB).

With the expected commercialization of the TB Patch and SQ109 entering human studies, the company plans to accelerate the development of its preclinical candidates for select other indications.

With mechanisms of action distinct from other available therapies, our small molecule product candidates act on multiple cellular pathways. These compounds have broad market potential with applications in SARS, candidiasis, ulcers (Helicobacter pylori), and other diseases with known or potential infectious etiology (Crohn’s disease). SQ609 – the company’s lead preclinical drug candidate – shows promising in vitro and in vivo activity as a wide spectrum antibiotic.

Drug Discovery

Sequella develops novel small molecule and natural product-based therapeutics for infectious diseases, starting with TB. Initial research programs identified new scaffolds with anti-mycobacterial activity and several compound libraries were prepared using focused combinatorial chemistry and modern synthetic techniques. Sequella scientists developed and validated several high-throughput screening assays that are used to analyze the libraries for activity and identify the most promising compounds for clinical development.

Discovery and lead optimization are conducted at our Rockville headquarters, which houses chemistry, cell biology, and microbiology laboratories, as well as Biosafety Level-3 (BSL-3) laboratories for the manipulation of high-hazard pathogenic microorganisms. This infrastructure, combined with our established methods and expertise, expedite the lead compound identification process.