PhagePro

We are so grateful to announce that PhagePro is one of the recipients of the MassVentures START Phase I grants! Huge thank you to MassVentures, the judges and sponsors of this impactful program, and of course to the state of Massachusetts. We couldn't be happier to be on #TeamMassachusetts. And a big congratulations to the other START award winners! It's an honor to be part of such a great cohort. Phase I awardees: BioSens8, Bloomer Tech, Emvolon, Eyebot, Guardion, Inc., Ortholevo, Theromics Inc., Transcend Air Corporation, Versatope Therapeutics Phase II awardees: Advanced Silicon Group, Electrified Thermal Solutions, Gel4Med, Inc., Notch, Osmoses Phase III awardees: ActivSignal, EnVision Endoscopy, Inc. Charlie Hipwood, Stacy Swider, Priya Yadav, Vinit Nijhawan (he/him), Sienna Leis, Whitney Leslie Massachusetts Executive Office of Economic Development (EOED), Yvonne Hao, Sarah Stanton

A few weeks ago, our CEO Minmin Yen, Ph.D., MPH (she/her) had the amazing opportunity to travel to the Netherlands with The Termeer Foundation. Many thanks to everyone at Netherlands Innovation Network in Boston, Health~Holland, and hollandbio for the thoughtful organization of the trip, in particular Belinda Termeer, Catharine Smith, Erica Mawby-Roche, Hans Schikan, Laura Duran, Simone Ho, and Kim Tran. At Innovation for Health, Dr. Yen chatted with Eline van Beest and Marco Fossatelli about the importance of DEI in the biotech ecosystem and how to sustainably incorporate strategies into our workforce cultures during a Topx Network panel. We are also grateful for the platform to share PhagePro's role in the devastating global cholera pandemic - many thanks to Axon Lawyers for supporting our AXON Innovation for Health award in the annual pitch contest! Lastly, we had such a great time bonding with other Termeer Fellows/Honorees (Daniel Fischer, Tim Knotnerus, June Park, Ph.D., Safia K. Rizvi, Cinzia Silvestri, Claudine van der Sande, Stan Wang, MD, PhD, Yael Weiss, and a huge welcome to Dan Jing Wu!) and the MA delegation (Jeanne LeClair, Freddy Nguyen, MD, PhD, and Jeevan Ramapriya). Looking forward to continuing to build and strengthen the transatlantic relationship between our two ecosystems!

We're a small and mighty team here at PhagePro. A huge thank you to the hard work of our scientists, Dr. Kiho Lee and Carolina Baez-Giangreco, this year. They are guided by our co-founder and Scientific Advisor Professor Andrew Camilli, whose curiosity and optimism drives our innovation. Our Advisory Board has been with us from the start and has never failed to give us sharp insights combined with compassionate support. A huge thank you to Tobi Nagel, Milka Bedikian, and John Tagliamonte for believing in us and for continuing to be with us on this adventure. Our team has been supported by incredibly knowledgeable consultants, including Shalini Shah for accounting, Eva Quinn for human resources, and Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic at Yale Law School for legal advice. Thank you for all that you do to keep PhagePro running day-to-day! From our team to yours, we hope you have a restorative and healing holiday season with loved ones, both near and far. We'll see you in 2024!

PhagePro received one of its first grants through the MassNextGen program by Massachusetts Life Sciences Center in 2019. It helped us hire our first full-time employee, Dr. Gabrielle Grandchamp, and reach scientific milestones that brought us here today. We are thankful for a funding mechanism that champions diversity in the biotech startup world and will continue to advocate for more resources and accessibility for #diverse founders who hold identities both seen and unseen. In April, our CEO Dr. Minmin Yen, Ph.D., MPH (she/her) returned to the stage to talk about her journey as a Taiwanese-American woman founder during the launch of MassNextGen 2.0. A huge thank you to the sponsors - past, present, and future. Let's continue to hold the door wide open for more talented, diverse founders to develop life-saving drugs for everyone. https://lnkd.in/eupuHhxf #DiversityMatters #BiotechStartup #TeamMassachusetts

We would next like to highlight our trip to Kenya with one of our advisors Dr. Tobi Nagel from PHAGES FOR GLOBAL HEALTH. With a huge thanks to Dr. Lillian Musila, PhD and her team at Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), our CEO Dr. Minmin Yen, Ph.D., MPH (she/her) presented at a regulatory workshop for phage therapy. The atmosphere was full of enthusiasm and optimism for bringing phage to the clinic on the continent. Much gratitude to Erick Odoyo for organizing and moderating. There is more discussion across multiple governments to address the crisis of antibiotic resistance head-on. Dr. Yen spoke at PACCARB with other experts and industry leaders to urge U.S. policymakers to make changes and address the broken market. https://lnkd.in/ekKqdfe9 Our team has hope that 2024 will bring positive news to the phage therapy industry on a global scale! #PhageTherapy #PhagesForAll

As we wind down 2023, our team has been grounding and re-centering ourselves in gratitude and resilience amidst so much pain in the world. We are grateful for the privilege to continue working on our mission to develop phages for the communities that need it the most. Over the next week, we will be highlighting the meaningful and impactful opportunities from this year. Thank you to all who have been with us on this journey for your support, advocacy, and amplification of our work. Let's start off with the the Exclusive Licensing Agreement between PhagePro and Tufts University for ProphaLytic-Vc (PVC), the preventative phage cocktail we are developing to disrupt transmission of #cholera. Thank you to our team at Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic at Yale Law School for advocating on our behalf! https://lnkd.in/erdNYtyd We also officially welcomed Dr. Kiho Lee early this year to the PhagePro team as our intrepid Principal Scientist. Thank you for joining us on this adventure and being such a fierce advocate for the use of phages in global health! #PhageTherapy #DiversityMatters #EliminateCholera