SITC “bemused” by Government claims on lack of specialist laboratory capacity in UK

• Read the Government response
• Inquiry: The antimicrobial potential of bacteriophages
• Science, Innovation and Technology Committee

The Committee’s report called for greater Government support and action to resolve what it called a “licensing impasse” that is severely constraining the potential significant therapeutic benefits of bacteriophages.   

Because they have not been subject to full clinical and medical trials, bacteriophage viruses have only been used in the UK as a therapy of last resort. But pharmacological enterprises have been reluctant to embark on full-scale trials necessary to license phages as a medical treatment because of uncertainty around the return on the investment, and the report raised concerns about the specialist facilities and capacity needed to conduct those trials.  

The Government’s response on the antimicrobial potential of bacteriophages makes a welcome move in support of clinical trials, pledging to increase engagement with phage researchers and clinicians and to help them access funding and support.  

Also welcome is the Government’s intention to consult later this year on guidance relating to the data that would be required to evaluate applications for clinical trials and licensed phage products, which will lay the ground for a future ‘monograph’ - directive guidance for medical clinicians - for the compassionate use of phages. These steps will both help drive the process toward licensing phages and help clinicians use them before that process is completed.  

But the Government’s response disappointed on the issue of the specialist facilities required to develop, trial and license bacteriophages for clinical - and potentially much wider – use.  The Committee had argued that such a specialist facility could be shared across the ‘One Health’ spectrum – diagnostics and treatments with potential applications across humans, animals, food production, biome products and the environment more widely - and with public and private clients, which could cross-subsidise the facility with minimal public funding. 

Chair comment 

Commenting on the Government response, Committee Chair Rt Hon Greg Clark MP said: “We’re very pleased to see the Government positively engaging with the potentially revolutionary possibilities of bacteriophage viruses in the global fight against antimicrobial resistance – a severe and present risk that threatens to return the practice of medicine to a time when even routine surgeries were hazardous.   

“But the Committee was somewhat bemused, and especially after the evidence we’ve heard in recent weeks about the legacy of Covid in the UK and of the great successes of the Vaccine Task Force, to hear that Government considers that while the UKHSA can offer expertise and advice on the development of phages, we do not have in the UK the necessary laboratory capacity.   

“We have noted the state-of-the-art Rosalind Franklin Laboratory, built to increase and improve UK diagnostic capacity as part of our pandemic response. It offers exactly the kind of facility that could be adapted for important research such as into bacteriophages - not to mention helping to embed the diagnostic legacy of the UK’s pandemic response - yet the Government recently listed it for sale on Rightmove. There is a glaring contradiction here that the Government really must take the pragmatic, practical and necessarily longer-term steps to resolve.”  

The Government response notes again that it will consider the proposals and recommendations of the Innovate UK Phage Knowledge Transfer Network, and of the 5-year Anti-Microbial Resistance National Action Plan - but this has been due for some time and the Committee repeats the call, made in its report, for an expected publication date.

Further information

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