March 11, 2021
PhagePro receives $3 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health
PhagePro Inc., a Boston-based biotechnology company pioneering the use of bacteriophages to prevent bacterial infections and reduce antibiotic resistance in the most vulnerable communities around the world, is pleased to announce that it recently received a total of $3 million under a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant and an NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Award (R21). This follows an initial Phase I SBIR grant awarded to PhagePro.
PhagePro, under the leadership of its founding Chief Executive Officer Dr. Minmin Yen, Ph.D., MPH, is looking forward to using its Phase II SBIR grant for research and development work to optimize ProphaLytic-Vc (PVC), an orally dosed bacteriophage preparation specifically targeted towards epidemic strains of cholera, for use in real-world settings. With its R21 grant, PhagePro will be using cholera phages to target antibiotic-resistant Vibrio cholerae, the causative agent of cholera, and to reduce transmission of antibiotic resistance genes.
Cholera remains a significant public health issue in resource-limited areas of the world, where drinking water and sewage are not always separated and treated. According to the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an estimated 3-5 million cases of cholera occur each year around the world. Over 100,000 of these cases lead to death. PhagePro is actively working with other cholera experts in the field to provide innovative and broadly effective solutions to this pervasive epidemic. The main collaborator for the Phase II SBIR grant is the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (iccdr,b), the world’s leading cholera hospital.
Dr. Yen reflects on the work ahead, “With the recent COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a re-shifting in priorities to focus on the prevention of infectious diseases. The whole world now sees what we in global health have long known to be true – pandemics are devastating. PhagePro is honored and grateful to be in this fight with our partners, especially our collaborators at the icddr,b. They are working day and night to prevent diarrheal disease outbreaks, especially among vulnerable communities, and our work would not exist without them.”
The Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic at Yale Law School provided legal counsel to PhagePro in connection with PhagePro’s grant applications and supports PhagePro with various other corporate and transactional legal matters.
About PhagePro: PhagePro (https://www.phageproinc.com/) is an early-stage biotechnology therapeutics company spun out of the Camilli Lab at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. PhagePro aims to use bacteriophages -- viruses that specifically target and kill bacteria -- to prevent bacterial infections. PhagePro’s mission is to develop bacteriophage-based products to help the world’s most vulnerable communities prosper.
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number 2R44AI142960-03 and 1R21AI156828-01. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.