The partnership is between the Precision Health Technologies Accelerator (PHTA) and Inteliphage, a Belgium-headquartered bacteriophage technology company developing an integrated platform for personalised phage therapy.
The Precision Health Technologies Accelerator (PHTA) is the University of Birmingham's flagship life sciences innovation facility, based at the Birmingham Health Innovation Campus, where it supports companies developing new healthcare technologies, diagnostics, medicines and medical devices.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing global health problem. It happens when bacteria change over time and antibiotics stop working against them.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has named AMR as one of the world’s top ten health challenges.
Over the past five years alone, the burden of resistance has increased by 40 per cent, and AMR-related deaths are predicted to rise to 10 million per year by 2050 – unless effective action is taken.
With antibiotic treatment options running out, bacteriophages – or phages – are emerging as a complementary weapon in the battle against AMR.
A broad category of viruses, phages selectively recognise and attach to susceptible bacterial targets, injecting their own DNA into the bacteria.
This process ultimately destroys the targeted bacteria while producing new phages to continue the attack, generally leaving ‘good’ bacteria and human cells undamaged.
For phage therapy to be effective in tackling AMR, the right bacteriophages for each patient’s infection need to be selected.
To enable this, Inteliphage is developing PhageXpert, an automated phage susceptibility testing (phagogram) workflow combining a kit and software to support timely and evidence-based phage selection.
In parallel, the company is developing a phage library focused on clinically relevant bacterial strains, together with the capabilities required for quality-assured phage supply through applicable clinical and regulatory pathways.
Inteliphage is also building a collection of phages that can target bacteria commonly responsible for serious infections. The company is working to make sure these treatments can be produced safely and meet the standards needed for use in healthcare.
Through its partnership with PHTA, Inteliphage will continue developing PhageXpert in the UK and work towards making the technology available to patients. The technology could eventually be used in both civilian and military healthcare.
David Browning, chief technology officer at PHTA, said: “The University of Birmingham has a strong track record in finding new ways to tackle drug-resistant infections. Working with companies such as Inteliphage allows us to help turn scientific research into treatments that could make a real difference to patients.
“By joining PHTA, Inteliphage will have access to researchers, doctors and business experts who can help the company develop its technology. It will also benefit from links with the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine and support with regulations and bringing the technology to market.
“Phages are a really promising way of treating infections and could help save lives. We are very pleased to be working with Inteliphage at this important stage of its development.”
