As I mentioned in a
previous post, phage therapy is becoming a more attractive therapeutic avenue to treat bacterial infections, especially in light of increases in antibiotic resistance prevalence. Interest and support for phage therapy continues to increase, but the US & Western Europe are still in the early stages of developing medical phage therapeutics for approved patient use (only a small number of phage preparations are FDA approved for use on food to prevent food poisoning by bacteria; nothing is approved for patients with bacterial infections). While the progress in the US and Western Europe is still in early stages, phage therapy medicines continue to be used in Eastern Europe throughout Russia and nearby countries.
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Microgen is a major Russian pharmaceutical company that
produces many different phage therapies. Source |
Phage therapies are approved for human therapeutic use in Eastern European countries, including Russia. The major pharmaceutical company that produces general phage therapies is
Microgen. Although these common phage therapies have been used for decades in Russia (before Russia, the
et al did exactly this, and recently reported their findings in the journal 'Virology' (reference [1]).
former Soviet Union), their composition, safety, and efficacy have not been scientifically evaluated [1]. If we are to move forward in our endeavors toward using phages
therapeutically, we must address this lack of knowledge by evaluating the composition, efficacy, and safety of phage cocktails which have long been used in Russia.