Henry Skinner, PhD
CEO, AMR Action Fund
Stemming from the Greek words for ‘bacteria eater,’ bacteriophages have been around for billions of years and are believed to be the most abundant organisms on earth.
Earlier this year, the journal Nature Communications published a noteworthy case study: A toddler became critically ill from an extensively drug-resistant blood infection after a liver transplant. Out of options, the medical team administered an experimental combination of antibiotics and bacteriophages — a type of virus that kills bacteria. The treatment cleared the infection and, two years later, the child is healthy and completely free of the pathogen that made him sick.
Advantages of phages
Bacteriophages, or simply phages, are found everywhere — from your gut to the dirt beneath your feet to the depths of the ocean. Scoop up soil from your garden, and it’s likely teeming with these microscopic bacteria eaters.
In the war against antimicrobial resistance (AMR), phages present a potentially potent weapon for patients sick with intractable bacterial infections. Scientists, particularly in Georgia and Eastern Europe, recognised the therapeutic potential of phages decades ago. But progress has been slow, investment has been minimal and clinical data has been sparse. Fortunately, that’s changing.
Bacteriophages, or simply phages, are found everywhere — from your gut to the dirt beneath your feet to the depths of the ocean.
Personalised therapies
In recent years, several academic research centres — including Baylor College of Medicine, UC San Diego School of Medicine and Université catholique de Louvain — as well as hospitals and small biotech companies across the US and Europe have trained their sights on developing phage therapies.
Unlike traditional broad-spectrum antibiotics, phages can offer a personalised approach in which specific phages are matched to the specific bacteria causing an illness. This targeted strategy could benefit sick patients and change the dynamics of antimicrobial resistance.
Importantly, phages also present a new and attractive investment option in a field starved of capital. One of our first investments at the AMR Action Fund was into Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, which is now testing its phages in clinical trials for the treatment of prosthetic joint infections, diabetic foot infections and lung infections among cystic fibrosis patients.
Getting involved
New medications, however, are not made overnight. Promising as phage therapies appear, it will be years before one is approved. Infectious disease specialists, regulatory agencies as well as pharmaceutical, biotech and diagnostic companies should be thinking deeply about how phages can enhance current treatment approaches. They should focus on how these therapies can best benefit patients — because when it comes to AMR, the costs of inaction and inefficiencies are paid for with human lives.
Learn more at amractionfund.com
