19 May 2022 - - The first patient has been dosed in US-based biotechnology company Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, Inc's DFO Adaptive Novel Care Evaluation (DANCE) trial, a Phase 1/2 clinical study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of APT's precision bacteriophage therapy in patients with Diabetic Foot Osteomyelitis, the company said.

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 phages, which collectively provide broad coverage against many of the world's highest priority antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Phages from the APT phage bank are precision-matched to the patient's infections through a proprietary phage susceptibility test that APT has teamed with Mayo Clinic Laboratories to commercialize on a global scale.

There are more than 1.5 m patients diagnosed with diabetes worldwide each year. DFO results from soft tissue infections in diabetic patients where the infection spreads into the bone and is the cause of approximately 85% of lower extremity amputations in diabetic patients.

The American Diabetes Association estimates that 20% of patients with diabetic foot infections, of which more than 60% have severe infections, have underlying osteomyelitis that left unresolved, places patients at significantly higher risk of amputation.

Adaptive Phage Therapeutics 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 and Diabetic Foot Osteomyelitis.

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 by APT co-founder Carl R. Merril, MD CAPT USPHS, and further advanced within a biodefense program of US Department of Defense.

APT acquired world-wide exclusive commercial rights in 2017.