[olliej]

Not details on whether this only kills bacteria.

There are many chemicals discovered over the years that kill bacteria, but have the downside of damaging/killing many other things (eg the patient).

[pergadad]

Sounds like the main data sources were previous drug trials and possibly the kind of lists of similar compounds that drug companies generate and patent when they hope one of them might turn out to treat a particular disease well. So with some luck they have taken one that already has a few lab tests under its belt (like halicin).