EIT Health, part of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, recently announced the acquisition of one of the startups it has supported, PhagoMed, by BioNTech.
The startup is developing a new synthetic lysine technology, an amino acid that contributes to the manufacture of proteins, for antimicrobial therapies thanks to the support it received from EIT Health under the Gold Track program.
According to the WHO, AMR, which poses a global threat to health and development, is caused by some bacteria resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics currently available, due to excessive use, and therefore requires urgent action.
There are therefore more and more infections that are sometimes impossible to treat as antibiotics become less effective, while among other things new treatments of infections are needed to reduce the threat.
The resistance of microbes is a major source of concern for public health around the world, especially after the pandemic. Science and innovation are therefore double necessary to find new and alternative solutions to antibiotics that lose their effectiveness, as it has been found in the last two years that safety from infectious diseases is not sufficient.
PhagoMed’s potential to help solve this problem inspired Jan-Philipp Beck, CEO of EIT Health to support the innovative science and team of the startup under the Gold Track program in their achievement.
Specifically, PhagoMed uses lysines to fight bacterial infections as an alternative to antibiotics. Lysines are enzymes produced by bacteriophages that break down the bacterial cell walls, killing bacteria.
Lysines also kill very selectively and only specific groups of bacteria. Thanks to PhagoMed’s LysinBuilder platform, it becomes possible to develop synthetic lysins resulting in a new class of targeted antibacterial substances that has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of bacterial infections.
It should be noted that Vienna-based PhagoMed joined the Gold Track program in June 2020 with a strong team and a promising idea, receiving support for 12 months, in terms of its strategy and business model with the aim of accelerating its commercial trajectory.
