Phage therapy innovation map

Who invents and patents phage therapies around the world, where, and how the field is changing.

IdeaDesignDataAnalysisWritingShared

Now: Results published in Nature Biotechnology · Updated 2026-11-02

The question

Phage therapy uses viruses that kill bacteria. As antibiotics fail more often, it is one of the most watched alternatives. This project asked: who is inventing phage therapies, in which countries, and how fast is the field moving? We answered it with machine learning on large patent datasets.

A second study follows the money that goes into the field: who has paid for phage therapy research since 1999, where the money goes, and who is left out. Explore it in the phage therapy funding explorer.

Where we are

Step	Status
Build and clean the global patent dataset	Done
Analyse inventors, applicants, countries and technologies	Done
Share the method as a protocol	Done · January 2024
Publish the results in Nature Biotechnology	Done · December 2024
Map 25 years of phage therapy research funding (802 grants)	Done
Share the funding explorer online	Done · November 2026
Post the funding study as a preprint	In preparation

Team

• Maxime Descartes Mbogning Fonkou, lead author. All co-authors are listed in the article.

We are looking for

• Teams working on phage therapy or antimicrobial resistance who would like a deeper or updated analysis, for example on clinical trials, funding or specific bacteria

Outputs so far

Join this project

We welcome researchers, students, practitioners and funders. Tell us who you are and what you could bring; we reply to every application.

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