HMH Invests in Adaptive Phage Therapeutics Aiming to Kill Superbugs
What you need to know
Hackensack Meridian Health has invested in the clinical-stage biotechnology company Adaptive Phage Therapeutics (APT), aiming to kill ‘Superbugs’.
APT is taking aim at the toughest multi-drug resistant “superbugs” using precision-targeted, genomically-screened, and highly purified viruses known as bacteriophages, or “phages.”
“The rise of multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogenic bacteria is a growing challenge for all health care organizations treating all kinds of different infections.”
Robert C. Garrett, FACHE, CEO
In response to urgent requests from physicians caring for patients with severe infections due to multi-drug resistant pathogens, APT has provided PhageBank therapy to more than 20 patients under compassionate use.
More details about APT
In 2017, APT acquired the world-wide exclusive commercial rights to PhageBank™ and related technologies, including an innovative high throughput phage susceptibility test, known as the HRQT companion diagnostic, from the U.S. Navy.
Phages are viruses that have co-evolved with bacteria, and are the most prolific natural killers of bacteria on earth – including ‘superbugs’ that have become resistant to all known antibiotic drugs. PhageBank is a broad-spectrum collection of phages that can be matched, on a patient-specific basis, to a targeted pathogen. APT is advancing the technology through innovation in bioinformatics, rapid phage-bacteria matching and phage purification methods that could result in an approach capable of providing a precision-matched therapy instantly upon the diagnosis of a drug-resistant pathogen.
Over time, PhageBank has been shown to increase in spectrum of coverage, adapting to the resistance that is common with bacterial evolution.