Shanghai, Wuhan, November 12, 2021. Phagelux, Inc. is proud to announce the change of name of its Wuhan-based subsidiary to Lysigen (Chinese Name).  

According to Phagelux, Inc. CEO Mark Engel, “this name change was made to help the market better understand the importance of the world-leading science being created at our facility.  More specifically, the use of lysins as both therapeutics and raw materials is set to explode.  We wanted to make it clearer to customers and investors that we are an industry-leading company in this science.”

According to Bryan Li, EVP, Medical, “a lysin isphage en-coded peptidoglycan hydrolase that kills bacteria and it has several advantages as compared to traditional chemical antibiotic: (1) it works much faster; (2) it can easily penetrate biofilm; (3) it is very targeted against a specific pathogen and does not harm the rest of the biome; and (4) it does not cause bacterial resistance; and (5) is has synergistic effect when combined with traditional antibiotics.  At Lysigen, we have created the LysiThru™ system which allows Lysigen “to identify novel, effective, and commercially viable lysins faster and better than anyone else.  Lysigen already has several first in class products under development.” 

Dr. Assaf Raz, PhD., VP Research and Development China, provided more details.  “LysiThru™ is a methodology suite combining bioinformatic analysis, and high throughput construction, engineering, and screening of phage lysins. This platform facilitates the rapid development of superior lysins, with commercial potential, at a fraction of the time and cost as compared to competitors.”

Dr. Mya Thandar, PhD., a lead research scientist at Lysigen, and a key architect of the LysiThru™ system, sums by saying “Antibiotic resistance (AMR) is one of the great medical problems of our times.  I believe that the LysiThru™ system will allow us to create targeted biological products that can compliment, or replace, existing therapeutics in order to address this global health threat.  We believe that within the next few years we can have a product in development for almost every problematic pathogen.”  Dr. Thandar added that addressing AMR infections in novel ways is very important since “the risk of AMR infections could potentially grow rapidly.”  

At present, according the UN Interagency Coordinating Group on Antibiotic Resistance,  about 700 thousandspeople per annum die from antibiotic resistant infections. But, this number could grow globally to 10 million per annum under some scenarios. 

About Phagelux: Phagelux is a clinical stage company creating biological antibacterials.  The company is developing novel skin products and also novel in vivo products, the latter of which will be co-developed with partners. The company has labs and scale up GMP facilities in Montreal and Wuhan.