By Staff Writer – Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

This afternoon, I spoke to Achaogen’s CEO Kevin Judice about superbugs. Once a bacterial infection develops resistance to common antibiotic treatments, the bacteria can spread through populations uncontrollably. And what’s worse, superbugs can live anywhere — they can be found in hospital rooms and in our bodies.

If drugs aren’t developed fast enough to kill these constantly emerging superbugs, we could be living in conditions before there were antibiotics. Currently, Judice is working on drugs to treat the superbugs before they get out of control. The best part of his job, he says, is knowing he has developed a drug that has saved someone’s life.

I also interviewed Acucela’s CEO, Dr. Ryo Kubota, about macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in older people. Currently, there are no treatments for the dry form of age-related MD, but Acucela has a pill that can treat the disease. Today, the company announced the start of Phase II clinical trial for the drug.

Stay tuned. I’ll post the video interviews in the next few days.