Adaptive Phage Therapeutics Extends Series B to $61 million to Accelerate Trials Against Prosthetic Joint Infection and Diabetic Foot Osteomyelitis

Last month, Gaithersburg-based Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, Inc. (“APT”), a clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to providing therapies to treat infectious diseases, announced that the AMR Action Fund has added $20 million to an existing $41 million Series B round as a co-investor, bringing the Series B total to $61 million. The new funding follows initial Series B closing in May 2021 and will be used to accelerate clinical trials against Prosthetic Joint Infection (PJI) and Diabetic Foot Osteomyelitis (DFO).

Per the press release: The round was initiated in May 2021 and led by Deerfield Management Company, with participation from a second institutional investor and Mayo Clinic. Proceeds of the AMR Action Fund’s investment are primarily intended to support APT’s clinical trials to address substantial unmet patient needs in Prosthetic Joint Infection (PJI) and Diabetic Foot Osteomyelitis (DFO).

“We are very pleased to welcome the AMR Action Fund as an investor,” stated Greg Merril, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of APT. “In addition to their capital, the AMR Action Fund adds significant strategic value, including advisory and scientific support. We believe AMR Action Fund will be an ideal partner to help progress and accelerate APT’s mission to provide an effective therapeutic response to the global rise of antimicrobial resistant (AMR) infections.”

Bacteriophages (phages) are the most prolific and diverse bactericidal agents on earth, with the killing function of each phage limited to a narrow range of target bacteria. APT’s antimicrobial technology is based on an ever-growing library of hundreds of systematically discovered, selected, catalogued, and curated phages, which collectively provide broad coverage against many of the world’s highest priority antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. APT is uniquely advancing an inherently adaptive treatment approach with the potential to overcome the root causes of the decreasing global effectiveness of antibiotics – the continual evolution and ever-growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotic therapies.

“Adaptive Phage Therapeutics is advancing from treating patients under compassionate emergency use to randomized, controlled clinical trials,” said Jonathan Leff, Partner at Deerfield. “At this important clinical inflection point, we are excited to welcome The AMR Action Fund as a co-investor in APT as we work together to solve one of the key challenges facing modern medicine, the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”

“The combination of APT’s phage bank, pathogen monitoring, and phage discovery capabilities offers a treatment approach designed to be effective against both current bacteria and future drug-resistant strains that will inevitably evolve and emerge across a wide range of clinical indications,” said Martin Heidecker, PhD, Chief Investment Officer of the AMR Action Fund, who will join APT’s Board of Directors. “APT’s development and treatment model is an ambitious effort, and we are excited to support APT as they advance their adaptive phage bank treatment in clinical trials for PJI and DFO.”

About Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, Inc.
Adaptive Phage Therapeutics (APT) is a clinical-stage company advancing therapies to treat multi-drug resistant infections. Traditional antibiotic approaches lose effectiveness over time due to bacteria’s inherent ability to evolve resistance. APT’s approach uniquely leverages an ever-growing library of systematically discovered, selected, catalogued, and curated bacteriophages (phages), which collectively provide broad coverage against many of the world’s highest priority antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Phages from APT phage bank are matched to treat patient’s infections through a proprietary susceptibility assay that APT has teamed with Mayo Clinic Laboratories to commercialize on a global scale.