Is it rational to work on phage proteins (and phage) as therapeutics? Yes! No! Carefully!

John H. Rex

Dr. Rex is a physician, drug developer, and a global AMR (Antimicrobial Resistance) policy advocate with more than 35 years of clinical care, drug development, and policy experience focused on antimicrobial agents. He is currently Chief Medical Officer for F2G, Ltd. (an antifungal biotech), is an operating partner with a venture capital group (Advent Life Sciences), is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the $1b AMR Action Fund that supports late-stage antimicrobial development, and was a voting member on the US Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB, 2015-2019). He also publishes an AMR-focused scientific newsletter which reaches 3,000 readers globally (http://amr.solutions/blog.html). Dr. Rex has worked steadily during his career to enable and support the development of new antimicrobial agents. This has included work advancing novel regulatory paradigms for antibacterials, publications on novel reimbursement models for antibiotics, co-founding of a public-private partnership supporting early-stage antibiotic development (CARB-X), co-founding the New Drugs for Bad Bugs (ND4BB) program of Europe’s Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), and a 4-year term as Industry Representative on the FDA Anti-Infective Drugs Advisory Committee (AIDAC, 2007–2011). His experience also includes academic patient care and teaching (McGovern Medical School-Houston; 1992-2002) as well as moving compounds from preclinical development through all development phases via both academic positions (NIH, Bethesda, MD; McGovern Medical School-Houston; 1987-2002) and VP-level roles at a multinational pharmaceutical firm (AstraZeneca, 2003-2016).