Company: APM
Filing Date: 2025-07-15
Form Type: DRS
Source: 0001213900-25-063899
Chunk: 195

Company: Aptorum Group Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-07-15
Form: DRS
Chunk 195
---
 develop serious
MRSA infection and about 19,000 patients die as a result each year (https://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2007/r071016.htm). According to
the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”), Staphylococcus aureus, including MRSA, caused about 11% of healthcare-associated
infections in 2011 (source: http://www.healthcommunities.com/mrsa-infection/incidence.shtml). Each year in the U.S., around one out of
every twenty-five hospitalized patients contracts at least one infection in the hospital (N Engl J Med. 2014, 27;370(13):1198-208). In
the U.S., there were over 80,000 invasive MRSA infections and 11,285 related deaths in 2011 (source: https://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/28/us/mrsa-fast-facts/index.html).
Indeed, severe MRSA infections most commonly occur during or soon after inpatient medical care. More than 290,000 hospitalized patients
are infected with Staphylococcus aureus and of these staphylococcal infections, approximately 126,000 are related to MRSA (source: http://www.healthcommunities.com/mrsa-infection/incidence.shtml).

ALS-4 is a small drug molecule
which appears to target the products produced by bacterial genes that facilitate the successful colonization and survival of the bacterium
in the body or that cause damage to the body’s systems. These products of bacterial genes are referred to as “virulence expression.”
Targeting bacterial virulence is an alternative approach to antimicrobial therapy that offers promising opportunities to overcome the
emergence and increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Professor Richard Kao from
The University of Hong Kong (who is also the Founder and Principal Investigator of Acticule and Inventor of ALS-1, ALS-2, ALS-3 and ALS-4)
initiated a high throughput approach for screening compounds which are active against virulence expression, which resulted in the discovery
of ALS-1, ALS-2, ALS-3 and ALS-4.

ALS-4 targets an enzyme essential
for Staphylococcus aureus (including MRSA) survival in vivo. This enzyme is involved in the production of Staphyloxanthin, a carotenoid
pigment produced by Staphylococcus aureus including MRSA, and is responsible for