Phage therapy firm Ampliphi to list on NYSE

The approval, which was announced last night, will see the bacteriophage focused drug developer’ shares begin trading on August 21.

The firm’s recently appointed CEO, Michael ​Scott Salka​,​ said: “​The NYSE MKT listing represents a key milestone for AmpliPhi on our mission to develop novel bacteriophage-based treatments to combat the growing global threat posed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria​.”

Back from the USSR​

Ampliphi Biosciences develops anti-infective therapies based on bacterial viruses – known as bacteriophage - as alternatives to antibiotics. ​

Phage therapy​ ​was used extensively in the Soviet Union as access to antibiotics developed in the West was limited.

While the approach is still used in Russia and other former eastern bloc countries, it has never caught on elsewhere.

Quite why is unclear, although researchers like phage expert ​Mzia Kutateladze​ ​from the Eliava Institute in Tbilisi, Georgia have suggested that (unfounded) concerns about using viruses to treat disease were a factor.

For others it is because, unlike their Soviet counterparts, Western doctors have always had access to antibiotics.

But in recent years this has started to change as bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics, prompting renewed interest in phage therapies.

News of the listing comes a few months after Ampliphi’s bacteriophage therapy production facility in Ljubljana was deemed to meet manufacturing standards by Slovenian regulators.