BIO news: Bacteria eaters head for Japan

Special Phage Services (SPS), the Sydney-based company that is developing bacteriophage therapies to fight antibiotic-resistant infections, has signed an agreement with Japanese pharmaceutical company Wako.

SPS managing director Tony Smithyman told ALS at BIO this week that the company had received help from the NSW and federal governments to set up the agreement, which aims to investigate the potential market for phage therapy in Japan.

Phages are viruses that infect bacteria and are named from the Greek word phago, meaning to eat.

The company is also hoping to shortly sign a joint venture agreement with a veterinary pharmaceutical company in Australia to develop phage therapy for animals. It is also actively pursuing aquaculture applications.

"We are also working with Westmead and Royal North Shore hospitals to screen resistant bacteria by isolated and testing them against phages," Smithyman told ALS today at the BIO conference in Boston, at which SPS is an exhibitor.

"The hospitals have said they want to go ahead with a full-scale trial."

SPS has recently upgraded its laboratory at Brookvale in Sydney's northern suburbs and is able to manufacture some of the phages there, although it still sources most from a company in Georgia, the former Soviet republic.

Phages have long been used as an antibacterial therapy in the former USSR, whereas western countries relied almost entirely on antibiotics. The evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, however, has raised interest in phage therapy.

In fact, there are three modern phages currently being used that have passed FDA approval. They are a phage to fight listeria in meat and cheese, one for bacterial disease in plants and one for E.coli in cattle.

While none are approved for human use as yet, the fact they are naturally occurring and do not have toxicity or residue issues means the future looks bright - and speedy - when therapies are ready for market.

The aim of SPS, Smithyman said, is to develop both a large library of bacterial isolates and a library of phages to screen them against, sourced from a range of materials such as soil, lagoon water, sewage and plants.

"We hope that within 10 years, hospitals will have banks of phages," Smithyman said. "If someone in ICU presents with a bacterial infection, samples can be run against the phage bank.

"Approximately 5000 people die in Australia from resistant infection each year, at a cost of about $1 billion. We believe we can reduce that burden on the system by bringing in phages."

Phage therapy is a relatively new industry in the west but Smithyman said it was now reaching commercialisation. "It is racing on," he said.