AmpliPhi Biosciences to be Granted European Patent Covering the Use of Phage Therapy to Resensitize Bacterial Infections To Antibiotics
SAN DIEGO, June 2, 2016 – AmpliPhi Biosciences Corporation (NYSEMKT: APHB), a global leader in the development of bacteriophage-based antibacterial therapies to treat drug-resistant infections, today announced that the European Patent Office has issued a decision to grant AmpliPhi patent No. 2136826, for the “Beneficial effects of bacteriophage treatments”. A corresponding patent has been granted in Australia and a species-specific patent for Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been granted in the United States. Additional patents are pending in Canada, Japan and the United States.
The claims of the patent cover the treatment of antibiotic-resistant infections through the staged use of bacteriophage preparations followed by the antibiotic to which the bacteria were initially resistant. In the first stage of treatment, bacteriophage exert a strong selective pressure on the bacterial population, killing much of it, though a small portion may survive the phage onslaught by shedding genes that conferred antibiotic resistance, leaving these bacteria once again vulnerable – or resensitized – to antibiotics used in the second stage of the treatment. This phenomenon of resensitization to antibiotics following phage administration has been observed in both in vitro and in vivo experiments as well as in the case of an antibiotic-resistant bladder infection treated in Australia under a compassionate use exemption. A recent paper published by Yale scientists in Scientific Reports describes how phage can resensitize bacteria to antibiotics by forcing the bacteria to drop pumps that some antibiotic-resistant bacteria use to eliminate antibiotics before they can reach concentrations that would kill the cell. This specific bacterial response to the phage assault results in antibiotic concentrations reaching levels sufficient to cause bacterial death.
“This patent family is a key component of our strategy to protect not only our product formulations, but also how we expect to dose patients with phage to treat serious infections,” added M. Scott Salka, AmpliPhi’s CEO. “We are extremely excited by the potential to reset the clock on antibiotic resistance, thereby reinvigorating antibiotics long thought to be obsolete due to widespread bacterial resistance. We look forward to evaluating potential combination therapies using our proprietary phage cocktails and current antibiotics in order to combat the rising threat of antibiotic-resistant infections.”
