Adaptive Phage Therapeutics Announces “The AMR RAPID™ Challenge” for the Infectious Disease Research Community: Find a Bacteria Resistant to APT’s Investigational Phage Bank

September 7, 2022 |

2 min read

Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, Inc. announced “The AMR RAPID™ Challenge” at the World AMR Congress.

GAITHERSBURG, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, Inc. (“APT”), a clinical-stage biotechnology company controlling the world’s largest therapeutic phage library initiative and dedicated to providing therapies to treat infectious diseases, today announced “The AMR RAPID™ Challenge” at the World AMR Congress. RAPID is APT’s acronym for Rapidly Adaptive Phage for Infectious Disease.

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Through this challenge, APT will pay $1,000 to any individual or institution in the clinical research community that identifies a strain of bacteria (within the CDC’s most serious and urgent biological threat categories -- i.e., the “ESKAPE” pathogens*) for which APT cannot demonstrate sensitivity to with its phage bank. Applicants to the AMR RAPID™ Challenge should contact RAPID@aphage.com for further information, rules, and conditions or visit phagebank.com.

APT’s phage bank, in combination with APT’s Phage Susceptibility Test (PST), closes the loop in antimicrobial development, breaking the failed cycle of repeated antibiotic product introduction followed by obsolescence driven by resistance. Unlike traditional antibiotic development, APT’s phage bank approach is designed to adapt to emerging resistance within weeks. With the combination of the world’s largest and most diverse therapeutic phage initiative, and integration of real-time surveillance of emerging resistance, gaps in anti-bacterial activity are now guaranteed to be covered by APT’s phage bank.

“I am confident that APT has solved the problem caused by bacteria evolving resistance to antibiotics,” said Greg Merril, APT’s co-founder and CEO. “APT is offering to pay $1000 to clinical researchers if they can find even one bacterial strain, among ESKAPE pathogens, that is not sensitive to the company’s phage library. Even antibiotic resistant bacteria are no match for APT’s phage bank. Now, with our AMR RAPID Challenge, we guarantee it.”

* ESKAPE = Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter

About Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, Inc.

Adaptive Phage Therapeutics (APT) is a clinical-stage company advancing therapies to treat multi-drug resistant infections. APT has ongoing clinical trials to address substantial unmet patient needs in Prosthetic Joint Infection (PJI) and Diabetic Foot Osteomyelitis (DFO). APT also selectively provides investigational phage therapy, under FDA emergency Investigational New Drug allowance, to treat critically ill patients in which standard-of-care antibiotics have failed.

APT’s technology was originally developed at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by APT co-founder Carl R. Merril, MD CAPT USPHS (ret), and further advanced within a biodefense program of U.S. Department of Defense. APT acquired world-wide exclusive commercial rights in 2017.

For more information, visit http://www.aphage.com.