Antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest threats to public health at this time. The aquaculture industry contributes to this challenge with excessive and often exclusive use of antibiotics on farmed aquatic species. There is an urgent need for safe and effective alternatives that can safeguard animal and human health as well as the environment.
Bacteriophages, also commonly known as phages, are viruses with a high specificity towards their host bacteria. Their function is to eliminate excessively multiplying virulent pathogens without disturbing the microbiome or triggering side effects. They are ubiquitous in the environment and were proved to be safe and non-toxic. Our extensive research has found them to be effective prophylactically as well as therapeutically.
Proteon’s technology is particularly unique because it uses a combination of microbiology, biotechnology, bioinformatic and molecular biology research tools to identify, industrialize and deliver bacteriophages to industrial scale farming. Thanks to our advanced methodology, our products pose little to no threat of developing resistance, unlike antibiotics. Proteon Pharmaceuticals has worked with bacteriophage technology for over 15 years, and it develops products for most animal production industries. The product for aquaculture, BAFADOR®, is a 5-component bacteriophage cocktail targeting Aeromonas sp. and Pseudomonas sp. bacteria, in addition to strengthening the fish’s immune system. Because of the phage’s specificity to bacteria, the species of the treated animal has no influence on the efficacy of the product. For instance, BAFADOR®’s prophylactic efficacy was tested on European carp, by administering it for 5 days prior intraperitoneal infection. The positive control groups experienced an average mortality of 22.5% whereas no mortality was detected in the groups treated prophylactically with BAFADOR®. Bacteriophages are also very resilient, and BAFADOR® was proven to remain stable in various temperatures for long period of times, making it accessible to use in most geographical locations. Proteon Pharmaceuticals also developed patented methods to produce different formats of the product, for instance liquid, on-feed or microcapsules to better suit the need of each species and each industry.
Bacteriophages are a tangible and effective alternative to antibiotics. The aquaculture industry is in need of solutions that can improve the health of fish as well as lower mortality rates. This can consequently contribute to better production quality and important reduction of economic losses for farmers.