The Swiss agency for therapeutic products, Swissmedic, approved Zevtera (ceftobiprole medocaril) for the treatment of complicated skin and soft tissue infections, including diabetic foot infections which have not spread to the bone. Basilea is collaborating with Cilag, a Johnson & Johnson Co unit, to develop the antibiotic. Cilag will sell the drug in Switzerland.

Zevtera is the first, broad-spectrum, anti-MRSA cephalosporin antibiotic with activity against a range of difficult-to-treat Gram-positive and Gram-negative hospital- and community-acquired pathogens including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In clinical trials, ceftobiprole has demonstrated high cure rates in patients with complicated skin infections, including those caused by the potentially deadly MRSA.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March told Basilea it would approve ceftobiprole for use in those sorts of infections, pending the favorable outcome of test site inspections and review of some pieces of data. Ceftobiprole is also being evaluated as a treatment for both pneumonia requiring hospitalization and pneumonia picked up in a hospital setting. Ceftobiprole is widely expected by analysts to gain U.S. approval in the first half of 2009 to treat complicated skin and skin-structure infections.

Analysts also say ceftobiprole could become a billion-dollar earner, with estimates ranging between $850 million to $1,350 million in its best years.