GAITHERSBURG, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, Inc. (APT), a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of phage-based therapies to combat bacterial infections, is pleased to announce a collaboration and license agreement with the Israeli Phage Therapy Center (IPTC) of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hadassah Medical Center. Researchers at the IPTC have discovered several phages that have exceptionally broad coverage against antibiotic resistant bacteria. Under the agreement, Hadasit and Yissum, the technology transfer companies of Hadassah and the Hebrew University, grants APT exclusive rights to make, use, and sell licensed phages for human therapy, with the right to sublicense through multiple tiers. APT also has the first right to evaluate additional phages discovered by IPTC researchers for inclusion in APT’s phage bank. As consideration for the license and first right of refusal, APT made an upfront payment and will pay royalties from net sales on any therapeutic composition comprising a licensed phage.

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Notably, the licensed phages have already been used in emergency compassionate-use treatments for numerous patients for whom antibiotic options had been exhausted. In April 2023 the IPTC reported that 78% of compassionate-use bacteriophage treatments for antibiotic-resistant infections given since 2018 to patients at the Hadassah Medical Center and other hospitals in Israel have resulted in favorable outcomes. The center has received 159 requests for compassionate use of phage therapy for previously failed infections from Israel, the US, Finland and Germany. The most common indications for phage requests were bone and respiratory infections, with the most common bacteria being Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii and Staphylococcus aureus. Of the 18 patients who received intravenous phage therapy, 14 (78%) achieved clinical remission, and four (22%) were classified as treatment failure. No major side effects were reported.

“Over the past several years, we have built a mutually beneficial relationship with the scientists and clinicians at the Israeli Phage Therapy Center,” said Greg Merril, CEO of APT. “We are thrilled to enter into this collaboration and license agreement and to continue our work with Dr. Nir-Paz, Dr. Hazan, and the impressive group of phage scientists at Hebrew University and Hadassah Medical Center. We believe that phage-based therapies have the potential to revolutionize the treatment of bacterial infections, particularly in patients who have exhausted all other options, and this collaboration will enhance APT’s phage bank and enable us to bring these therapies to more patients in need.”

"We are excited to announce our collaboration and licensing agreement with the foremost phage therapy biotech firm, Adaptive Phage Therapeutics,” said Ronan Hazan, PhD, Head of the Israeli Phage Therapy Center and the Israeli Phage Bank and Head of the Institute of Biomedical and Oral Research (IBOR) of the Dental Medicine Faculty of the Hebrew University. “This partnership is a significant milestone in our mission to combat antimicrobial resistance using phage therapy. It is our conviction that phage therapy holds enormous potential to transform the way infectious diseases are treated, and this collaboration will help us bring these innovative treatments to patients in need. We look forward to working together to advance the field of phage therapy and develop new solutions to the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance."

"As an infectious disease doctor, I recognize the urgent need for new solutions in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. I am thrilled to see the Israeli Phage Therapy Center entering into a collaboration and licensing agreement with Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, the leading phage therapy biotech firm,” said Ran Nir-Paz, MD, Professor of Clinical Microbiology and Medicine at the department of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center and co-founder of the Israeli Phage Therapy Center. “Phage therapy holds great promise in addressing this global crisis, and this partnership is a crucial step forward in bringing these innovative treatments to patients in need."

The emergency clinical use of the phages licensed under this agreement have led to several published case studies and other manuscripts currently being prepared for publication, including:

• Nir-Paz R, Gelman D, Khouri A, Sisson BM, Fackler J, Alkalay-Oren S, Khalifa L, Rimon A, Yerushalmy O, Bader R, Amit S, Coppenhagen-Glazer S, Henry M, Quinones J, Malagon F, Biswas B, Moses AE, Merril G, Schooley RT, Brownstein MJ, Weil YA, Hazan R. 2019. Successful treatment of antibiotic-resistant, poly-microbial bone infection with bacteriophages and antibiotics combination. Clin Infect Dis 69:2015–2018. 10.1093/cid/ciz222. PubMed.
• Ameneh Khatami, Ruby C Y Lin, Aleksandra Petrovic-Fabijan, Sivan Alkalay-Oren, Sulaiman Almuzam, Philip N Britton, Michael J Brownstein, Quang Dao, Joe Fackler, Ronen Hazan, Bri’Anna Horne, Ran Nir-Paz, Jonathan R Iredell. Bacterial lysis, autophagy and innate immune responses during adjunctive phage therapy in a child. EMBO Mol Med (2021)13:e13936. 9 August 2021

About The Israeli Phage Therapy Center (IPTC)

The IPTC was operating since 2018, by the Hadassah Medical Center and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The center has received 159 requests for compassionate use of phage therapy for previously failed infections from Israel, the US, Finland and Germany. The most common indications for phage requests were bone and respiratory infections, with the most common bacteria being Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii and Staphylococcus aureus. Of the 18 patients who received intravenous phage therapy, 14 (78%) achieved clinical remission, and four (22%) were classified as treatment failure. No major side effects were reported.

About The Hadassah Medical Center

The Hadassah Medical Center was established in 1912 and is a world-class facility. For more than a century, Hadassah has set the standard of excellence for medical care and research in Israel. Every year, Hadassah provides nearly one million people with hospital services, and in keeping with worldwide trends, the Hadassah University Medical Center in Israel is moving toward day care and day hospitalization to reduce costs and risk of infection. Our doctors and scientists are on the frontlines, uniquely positioned to pinpoint ever-evolving medical needs. Their experience and ingenuity have yielded new ideas with huge potential in all areas of medicine, including therapeutics, diagnostic medical devices, and digital health. For more information about the Hadassah Medical Center, please visit https://www.hadassah.org.il/en/

About the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is Israel's leading academic and research institution. Serving 24,000 students from 80 countries, it produces a third of Israel's civilian research and is ranked 12th worldwide in biotechnology patent filings and commercial development. Faculty and alumni of the Hebrew University have won eight Nobel Prizes and a Fields Medal. For more information about the Hebrew University, please visit http://new.huji.ac.il/en.

About Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, Inc. (APT)

Adaptive Phage Therapeutics (APT) is a clinical-stage company advancing therapies to treat multidrug-resistant infections based on a phage bank concept originally initiated at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by APT co-founder Carl R. Merril, M.D., Capt. USPHS (ret). APT phage bank is being steadily expanded with new phage discoveries and collections from a variety of sources, including the biodefense labs of US Department of Defense, internal phage discovery initiatives at APT, and academic phage research labs collaborators around the world.

APT is the sponsor of ongoing clinical trials in Prosthetic Joint Infection (PJI) and Diabetic Foot Osteomyelitis (DFO), addressing notable unmet patient needs in those bacterial infection indications. APT’s phage bank has also been used in over 70 compassionate cases under FDA emergency Investigational New Drug allowance in which standard-of-care antibiotics had failed.

APT phage bank is paired with a phage susceptibility test (PST) that matches each patient bacterial isolate to specific lytic phage within APT’s collection – analogous to an antibiotic susceptibility test for matching antibiotics. The APT PST will be commercialized worldwide in collaboration with Mayo Clinic Laboratories.

APT’s clinical development program has attracted substantial financial support from The Defense Health Agency (DHA), NIAID/NIH, The Mayo Clinic, the AMR Action Fund, Deerfield Management, and other VC funds and healthcare systems. For more information, visit www.aphage.com.

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