BioWorld International Correspondent

LONDON - Phico Therapeutics Ltd. raised £450,000 (US$691,000) from Cambridge Research and Innovation Ltd., Providence Investment Company Ltd., Emblem Technology Partners Ltd. and business angels to commence development of genetically modified bacteriophages as antibiotics.

Cambridge-based Phico intends to load bacteriophages with genes that are lethal to bacteria. It believes the approach could be used to target almost any bacteria but will initially target the superbug, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Heather Fairhead, founder of Phico, told BioWorld International: "We have a model system, and will have something ready to start preclinical studies in about 18 months in MRSA. This is a platform technology, and although we have not explored any other areas, we believe it can relate to any other bacterium."

Fairhead was a molecular microbiologist working mainly in pathogens when she came up with the idea of using bacteriophages as a vehicle to deliver lethal genes to pathogenic bacteria. "The gene we are delivering targets a fundamental mechanism, common to most bacteria," she said. In laboratory studies the gene caused a 99 percent fall in the viability of E. coli. Bacteriophages can infect only bacteria, so there is no risk of delivering the gene to a patient's cells.

The possibility of using bacteriophages to combat bacterial infections was first recognized in 1915. Phages bind to bacterial cells injecting their genetic material, which instructs the cells to produce more phages. The cell wall of the bacterium then disintegrates, releasing the new phages to invade more bacterial cells. However, the bacteriophages themselves die once the bacteria are eliminated.

The potential of bacteriophages was largely overlooked following the discovery of penicillin, but interest has been rekindled by the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Research has continued in France and Poland on a limited scale, but the most advanced center is the Bacteriophage Institute in Tbilisi, in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, and bacteriophage therapy is used regularly across the former Soviet Union. Each bacteria has specific bacteriophages, which the institute specializes in identifying and manufacturing.

Fairhead said she believes there will be advantages, including increased potency, of using modified bacteriophages to deliver lethal genes, rather than following the practice of administering wild-type phages as lethal agents in their own right.