Ro 13-9904 has high in vitro activity, as does cefotaxime, against 57 Haemophilus influenzae and 60 Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains, including 5 and 11 filactamase-producing strains in each group, respectively.The appearance of 8i-lactamase-producing Haemophilus influenzae (2, 9) and Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains (1, 7) resistant to ampicillin and penicillin has prompted the search for alternative safe and effective drugs which are not affected by the enzyme. The second-and thirdgeneration cephalosporins, including cefamandole, cefuroxime, cefoxitin, and cefotaxime, have shown promising results in this respect. Recently, a new semisynthetic cephalosporin, Ro 13-9904 (W.H.O. approved generic name, ceftriaxone), has also been shown to have high in vitro activities against many gram-negative bacteria (8, 10). We therefore determined, by the agar dilution technique, the in vitro susceptibility of 57 H. influenzae and 60 N. gonorrhoeae strains to Ro 13-9904, and the results were compared with those of penicillin, ampicillin, and six other cephalosporins.H. influenzae strains were identified by their morphology, growth characteristics, and X-and V-factor requirements. All strains except two were isolated from sputum specimens of patients with respiratory tract infections, mostly exacerbation of chronic bronchitis. A total of five ,Blactamase-producing Haemophilus strains, identified by the filter-paper chromogenic cephalosporin test (6), were found among the sputum isolates, and two type B H. influenzae strains isolated from cerebrospinal fluid were non-,B-lactamase producers. The strains were kept at -20°C in tryptic soy broth (Difco) containing 0.5% yeast extract, 0.5% soluble hemoglobin (Oxoid), and 20% glycerol (vol/vol) until ready for susceptibility testing. The 60 N. gonorrhoeae strains, including 11 ,B-lactamase-producing strains, the sources of the antibiotics, and the agar dilution technique have been described in a previous report (5). Ro 13-9904 was supplied by F. Hoffmann-La Roche Co. A standardized inoculum of 103 colony-forming units per ml was used for all bacterial strains throughout this study. The test medium was Mueller-Hinton agar (Difco) supplemented with 1% hemoglobin (Oxoid) and 1% supplement B (Difco) for both Haemophilus and gonococcal strains.The activity of Ro 13-9904 and eight other ,Blactam antibiotics against H. influenzae and N. gonorrhoeae strains is shown in Table 1. Ro 13-9904 and cefotaxime were the most active compounds tested. Both drugs showed extremely high in vitro activities (minimal inhibitory concentration, -0.125,g/ml) against all Haemophilus and gonococcal strains, including the 5 and 11 /8-lactamase-producing strains of each group, respectively. All of the H. influenzae and N. gonorrhoeae strains were susceptible to the second-generation cephalosporins cefuroxime, cefamandole, and cefoxitin, and none of the strains required minimal inhibitory concentrations of >4 ,ug/ml. In contrast, a great proportion of H. influenzae strains were resistant to the firstgeneration cephalosp...