Scientists in the North-East last night claimed to have found a cure for the deadly hospital superbug MRSA.
A new medical research firm in Newcastle said it had identified three drugs that kill the bug - which is blamed for thousands of hospital deaths every year.
Newcastle University professor Malcolm Young, chief executive of e-Therapeutics, says his team has "industrialised" drugs research - by using computers to accurately predict the biological effect of any substance on any human tissue and on bacteria.
And because the MRSA treatment he has discovered uses chemicals that have already been tested on humans for other illnesses, the new antibiotics can be fast-tracked through clinical trials and could be in use on NHS wards within three years.
Medics last night said they welcomed anything that would help combat the infection, but union leaders called for extra cash to make sure hospitals are cleaner before any "cure" was in place.
Prof Young, a mathematical scientist on a three-year secondment from his role as Pro Vice Chancellor at Newcastle University, said the drugs discovered by e-Therapeutics have been demonstrated in the laboratory to kill even the most evolved and antibiotic-resistant strains of MRSA.
He said the firm was now planning the final stages of clinical testing of the three drugs, which he hopes will lead to regulatory approval by Government drugs body Nice (the National Institute for Clinical Excellence) and availability to doctors and patients.
Last year there were 404 MRSA cases in the North's hospitals, down from the five-year high of 419 in 2003/4 after a raft of new cleaning measures, including compulsory handwashing, were introduced on wards.
Hospital infections, including MRSA, are said to kill around 5,000 UK patients each year, although the national MRSA Support Group maintains that the true figure is closer to 20,000.
MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, has become difficult to treat because of its resistance to antibiotics.
But Prof Young said yesterday the drugs, named only as eTS1153 to protect the discovery, killed every known strain of MRSA and - critically - did not affect other cells, meaning new strains of the disease that are resistant to the new treatment are unlikely to develop. Each of the three drugs kills a different MRSA strain. He said: "We pursued treatments for MRSA and other resistant bugs because older laboratory methods have been extensively tried in this area but haven't resulted in effective new medicines.
"These new therapies for MRSA and other dangerous hospital-based infections are a tremendous boost for our new approach to drug discovery and for patient safety".
Kate Gould, director of infection prevention and control at Newcastle Hospitals, said: "MRSA is very high on the political and public agenda and is something we're working to reduce both in the hospital community and the community at large.
"We would welcome any new initiative or drug on the market that would widen our choice of agents available to tackle it."
Liz Twist, head of health for Unison in the North-East, said: "Any new advances in drugs that will help to eradicate MRSA are welcome. In the meantime we need to concentrate on the basics - not just the hand-washing and wiping but the real basics like making sure the wards are clean and tidy. That means investing more in hospital cleaning because what we can do today is make sure we have enough cleaners to do that properly."
e-Therapeutics, based in Fenham, was set up in 2005.
The drugs are already known to be safe, as the same compounds are already used to treat other diseases. Their make-up is being kept secret to prevent any drugs firms hijacking the research.
Page 2: Professor uses computers to analyse killer bacteria
