Antipneumococcal activity of ceftobiprole, a novel broad-spectrum cephalosporin

Ceftobiprole (previously known as BAL9141), an anti-methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus cephalosporin, was very highly active against a panel of 299 drug-susceptible and -resistant pneumococci, with MIC(50) and MIC(90) values (microg/ml) of 0.016 and 0.016 (penicillin susceptible), 0.06 and 0.5 (penicillin intermediate), and 0.5 and 1.0 (penicillin resistant). Ceftobiprole, imipenem, and ertapenem had lower MICs against all pneumococcal strains than amoxicillin, cefepime, ceftriaxone, cefotaxime, cefuroxime, or cefdinir. Macrolide and penicillin G MICs generally varied in parallel, whereas fluoroquinolone MICs did not correlate with penicillin or macrolide susceptibility or resistance. All strains were susceptible to linezolid, quinupristin-dalfopristin, daptomycin, vancomycin, and teicoplanin. Time-kill analyses showed that at 1x and 2x the MIC, ceftobiprole was bactericidal against 10/12 and 11/12 strains, respectively. Levofloxacin, moxifloxacin, vancomycin, and teicoplanin were each bactericidal against 10 to 12 strains at 2x the MIC. Azithromycin and clarithromycin were slowly bactericidal, and telithromycin was bactericidal against only 5/12 strains at 2x the MIC. Linezolid was mainly bacteriostatic, whereas quinupristin-dalfopristin and daptomycin showed marked killing at early time periods. Prolonged serial passage in the presence of subinhibitory concentrations of ceftobiprole failed to yield mutants with high MICs towards this cephalosporin, and single-passage selection showed very low frequencies of spontaneous mutants with breakthrough MICs towards ceftobiprole.