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A comment on FDA approves first US phage therapy trial (2019). Parent comment

Re:FDA approves first US phage therapy trial (2019) by Fomite on Monday January 27, 2020 @09:19PM (#22165838)
Phage therapy was researched by Félix d'Hérelle, a french-canadian scientist who was awarded the Leeuwenhoek Medal. Eli Lilly and Company were working on commercializing it in the U.S.

The problem was phage therapy couldn't stand up to a disruptive idea: the large scale production of penicillin in the mid-40's.

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Re:FDA approves first US phage therapy trial (2019) by BurningFrog on Monday January 27, 2020 @10:21PM (#22166142)
Didn't know that.

But I can see how it seemed that penicillin had solved that problem forever back then.

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Re:FDA approves first US phage therapy trial (2019) by Fomite on Monday January 27, 2020 @10:34PM (#22166199)
Indeed. While Flemming himself was concerned about resistance, penicillin is:

1) Much broader spectrum than phage preparations 2) Easier to manufacture in large quantities 3) Safer, because you don't need to filter the prep to remove endotoxins

It's basically a silver bullet - if you don't look too far in the future. It was incredibly disruptive.

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