New gonorrhea treatments could help fight antibiotic resistance
Two antibiotics—gepotidacin and zoliflodacin—have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea. The move could make a big difference in fighting the infection, which has become resistant to other antibiotics that have been used to treat it, according to a Dec. 11 article in Science.
Recent research published in The Lancet showed the efficacy of the antibiotics. A study from last May showed gepotidacin succeeding against gonorrhea. And a Dec. 11 study showed that zoliflodacin was safe and efficacious for treating the disease.
Experts quoted in the article noted that the availability of two new drugs to treat gonorrhea will lead to debate about how best to use them. Although some may think it makes sense to hold back on using the drugs until there are many treatment failures, in order to delay future resistance, two modeling studies suggest this strategy may not be the best option. Both studies were co-authored by Yonatan Grad, professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
One of the modeling studies, published October 2023 in Lancet Microbe, found that resistance to a new gonorrheal drug would emerge more slowly if that drug was not held in reserve, but instead was used together with the current drug, or if patients were randomized to get either the current drug or the new one. Another study, published July 2025 in medRxiv (preprint) also found that combining new and old drugs worked better than holding off using the new one.
Read the Science article: New antibiotics for gonorrhea could help beat back drug-resistant infections
