Precision antimicrobial medicine

Why replace antibiotics when we can make them work better?

Resistance often doesn't mean the antibiotic is finished. It means it needs a partner.1 The platform reads the bacterial genome of a resistant isolate and returns the adjunct most likely to restore its response — bacterial DNA fingerprint in, matched adjunct in minutes, not months. Today that runs as a research tool with our lab and hospital collaborators. The diagnostic comes next, as validation clears.

Research use only. Not a diagnostic device.

The problem

It isn't a science problem. It's an economics one.

1.27 million deaths a year, one in six infections already resistant, while the pipeline that should answer it can't pay for itself.

~$1.5B
To develop

Cost of one new antibiotic.

~$46M
Per year

What it earns back: a fraction.

0
New classes

None in ~three decades.

<1 yr
To bankruptcy

Achaogen, after approval.

How it works

DNA fingerprint in. Matched adjunct out.

Matching an adjunct to a patient's isolate has been manual work taking two to six months. We automate it: phages today, more modalities ranked alongside as they clear validation.

Step 01

Sequence the isolate

Upload the whole-genome sequence or PCR profile of the resistant strain.

Step 02

Match the library

The model ranks 4,000+ phages, plus β-lactamase inhibitors and depolymerases, against the strain.

Step 03

Confirm and source

The lab confirms the shortlist and sources the phage from any bank. Supply-agnostic.

Team

Built by the people closest to the problem.

Both founders lost a parent to a drug-resistant infection. We’re building with support from clinical and academic collaborators at CHUV, HUG and Apollo Hospitals.

Leadership

Dr. José Bila
CEO & Co-founder

PhD, EPFL. Ex-infectious disease product lead, with product now in trials. Leads strategy & fundraising.

Dr. Hale Bila
COO & Co-founder

PhD, EPFL. Leads regulatory strategy, quality systems and market access.

Dr. José Santos
CSO · Infection biologist

PhD, Institut Pasteur. 15+ years in infectious disease; leads scientific strategy and platform validation.

Extended team

Ms. Farzaneh Labbaf
Lead ML engineer

MSc in Computer Science. Leads the AI core for therapy matching: biological data into clinical predictions.

Ms. Wan-Ting Huang
Bioinformatics scientist

MSc in Bioinformatics. Builds scalable bioinformatics pipelines and genomic analysis tools for the platform.

Dr. Yassine El-Chazli
Microbiologist

PhD in Microbiology. Leads the strain bank and diagnostics; expert in microbial ecology & host–microbe interactions.

Ms. Sana Abbasi
Lab technician

MSc in Clinical Laboratory Research. Ensures high-quality experimental execution and reliable data generation in the lab.

Dr. Baptiste Bourgine
Strategic partnerships

PhD in Molecular Genetics. Drives partnerships with hospitals, research institutions and industry for clinical access.

Dr. Jacques Bauer
Scientific & IP advisor

30+ years in drug discovery, IP strategy and translational research.

CSLØM PharmaDuhn TherapeuticsInventuri Development
Dr. Pierre Morgon, PharmD, LL.M, MBA
Scientific & regulatory advisor

35+ years across biotech, MedTech and pharma; regulatory strategy, scaling and global operations.

Bristol Myers SquibbSanofiCanSinoBIO
Prof. Gilbert Greub, MD
Scientific & medical advisor

Director of Microbiology, CHUV; expert in antimicrobial resistance and clinical microbiology.

CHUVUnil
Innosuisse innovation project · University of Geneva & HUG

Co-funded by Innosuisse and run with the University of Geneva and Geneva University Hospitals, this project co-develops and improves a rapid test that selects the right phage adjunct for a resistant isolate inside a single day shift, and works out how that result reaches the treating team, from the microbiology bench into the hospital’s existing clinical workflow.

Prof. Jacques Schrenzel
Geneva University Hospitals (HUG)

Clinical microbiology and rapid diagnostics. Anchors the test in hospital routine and the route to clinical validation.

Dr. Patrice François
Geneva University Hospitals (HUG)

Genomics and molecular microbiology. Leads assay development and strain characterisation on the project.

Interreg · IT-CHAMP

Engineering phages and phage derivatives against biofilms, the form bacteria take when they stop responding to antibiotics altogether. Candidates are designed in silico, then screened in the wet lab at high throughput, so the promising designs are identified early in the cycle rather than at the end of it.

Prof. Letizia Fracchia
Università del Piemonte Orientale

Microbiology at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Novara. Works on anti-adhesive and anti-biofilm agents, and the assays that test them against staphylococcal and Candida biofilms.

Prof. Alberto Massarotti
Università del Piemonte Orientale

Associate professor of medicinal chemistry. Develops computational methods to find new lead compounds; co-founded the spin-out IXTAL in 2014.

Prof. Wolfram Brück
HES-SO Valais-Wallis

Professor of microbiology and head of the microbiology laboratories at the Institute of Life Sciences. Sequences phage genomes to establish the genetic passport that clears a phage for clinical use.

Recognition & support

Backed by the programmes betting on us.

Accelerators, innovation agencies and public bodies supporting the work, plus a Best Innovation Award at Phage Therapy 2025.

Best Innovation Award, Phage Therapy 2025
Innovation project supported by Innosuisse, the Swiss Innovation Agency
MassChallenge Switzerland
Biopôle Start-up Fund
Venture Kick
The Ark
Canton de Vaud
AWS
City of Sion
Interreg, European Union
NCCR AntiResist

Contact

Tell us what you're up against.

Labs, phage banks, hospital ID services, investors: we answer every message ourselves.

Send a message

Reference

  1. Adjunct and combination strategies can restore the activity of existing antibiotics against resistant strains, e.g. β-lactamase inhibitors (co-amoxiclav, a WHO essential medicine) and efflux-pump inhibitors. Reviewed in Yin et al., MicrobiologyOpen (2026), doi:10.1002/mbo3.70233; and JACS Au (2022), doi:10.1021/jacsau.2c00532. Reversibility is strain- and mechanism-dependent, not universal.