There are countless kinds of bacteria in nature, and there are bacteriophages that kill bacteria. The number of bacteriophages is vast, and it is known that there are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1031) bacteriophages.
Bacteria can proliferate indefinitely to increase their population.
Bacteriophages exist as a food chain in nature to suppress this infinite proliferation. For this reason, bacteriophages are also called ‘the natural enemy of bacteria’.
The term bacteriophage was derived from the Greek words ‘bacterio’ and ‘phage’, meaning ‘bacteria’ and ‘to devour’ respectively, so it literally interpreted as a ‘bacteria eater’.
To summarize the core, early research on bacteriophages started with “viruses that eat bacteria” and focused on developing new drugs for resistant bacteria called super bacteria.
However, as we entered the realm of phageome through PHAGERIA®, we became interested in immunity. The technology era up to this point is classified as the BC Era, and its goal is to focus on developing “First-in-Class” new drugs.
As we entered AD Era, we began to develop “First-in-Concept” new drugs. Based on the platform technology of PHAGERUS ® and PHAGERIARUS®, it is investing intensively with the goal of combating the virus and ultimately developing new drugs targeting immunotherapies. It can be said that the R&BD area for bacteriophages has been widely expanded from Super bacteria to immunity.
iNtRON has secured world-class technological competitiveness in this field, and continues to sail tirelessly with the development of New Drugs “from SUPERBUG to IMMUNE” as the polar star.
During the development of new drugs using bacteriophage, hypotheses such as “Dark Matter” and “Plate Phage Hypothesis” as well as “ViP Cycle Hypothesis” and “Triangle Hypothesis” have emerged.
Briefly, iNtRON develops “First-in-Concept” new drugs along with “First-in-Class” new drugs using bacteriophage.