Aspergillus Therapeutics: Future Agents

With the rising population of immunocompromised individuals in the population owing to various factors, such as longer life span, use of immunosuppressant drugs, newer interventions in cancer patients prolonging the life span, and spread of HIV/AIDS, the incidence of invasive fungal infections has increased globally with more than 1.5 million estimated deaths every year. The emergence of drug-resistant fungi such as azole-resistant Aspergillus fumigatus, Candida auris, and echinocandin-resistant Candida glabrata, coupled with a lack of antifungal susceptibility data for many fungi and difficulty in performing susceptibility testing by broth dilution method, has further necessitated the need for development of new drugs. The development of newer antifungals has shown promise as many drugs have entered phase-III clinical trials, while others are in various stages of clinical trials, pre-clinical, or in-vitro studies. These drugs comprise of both novel classes of antifungals as well as modifications or existing drugs or repurposed drugs as well. This chapter discusses these novel drugs under development that can be the future of the treatment of infections caused by drug-resistant Aspergillus species.