UTI sufferers have a new treatment option—and it's the first new class of antibiotics the FDA has approved for urinary tract infections in almost 30 years. NBC News reports gepotidacin, a pill from drugmaker GSK that will be sold under the brand name Blujepa, was on Tuesday given the green light for use in females ages 12 and up who are suffering from uncomplicated UTIs, which are the most typical type and are generally caused by bacteria like E. coli. NBC News explains that the bacteria that tend to cause UTIs are developing resistance to the antibiotics that have long been used, necessitating the development of new antibiotics.
GSK says the FDA approved fosfomycin, then a new class of antibiotics for uncomplicated UTIs, in 1996. A long dry spell followed until the FDA in 2024 approved the penicillin-class drug Pivya for uncomplicated UTIs. Blujepa belongs to a new class of antibiotics called triazaacenaphthylenes, which zero in on two key enzymes that E. coli bacteria need to replicate. In its announcement, GSK said more than half of all women will experience a UTI in their lifetime, with one in three of those women experiencing a recurrent infection.
In clinical trials of 3,000 women and teen girls, the drug, taken orally twice a day, performed slightly better than nitrofurantoin, which CNN describes as "the frontline antibiotic which is currently used to treat UTIs." Blujepa should be available in the back half of 2025. (Scientists say the idea of cranberry juice treating UTIs isn't true.)
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