CFPs: Testing Safety and Efficacy of Phage Therapy for the Treatment of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacterial Infections

Deadline: 16-Sep-25

The European Commission (EC) has launched the call for proposals to Test Safety and Efficacy of Phage Therapy for the Treatment of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacterial Infections.

Scope

• Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been identified by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly as a health Emergency in 2016. AMR is contributing to morbidity and mortality increasing the burden for society and healthcare costs. This is due to a worrying increase on the number of bacteria resistant to antibiotic treatment, causing chronic and often life-threatening infections such as wound and urinary tract infections. The World Health Organization (WHO) lists AMR among the top 10 threats for global health and recognises that a lack of innovation is set to undermine antibiotic performance and health gains, with a major gap in the discovery of innovative antibacterial treatments
• Proposals should aim to develop phage-based therapies to treat bacterial infections that do not respond to conventional treatment options. For this, applicants should carry out multicentre, multinational randomised controlled clinical trial (RCT) to generate scientific evidence demonstrating safety and efficacy of phage-based therapy as stand-alone or in combination with standard-of-care (such as antibiotic or other innovative non-antibiotic-based treatment) for the treatment of difficult-to-treat bacterial infections.

Funding Information

• Budget (EUR) Year 2025: 45 000 000
• Contributions: around 15000000

Eligible Activities

• The following activities are generally eligible for grants under Horizon Europe:
  • Research and innovation actions (RIA): Activities that aim primarily to establish new knowledge or to explore the feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution. This may include basic and applied research, technology development and integration, testing, demonstration and validation of a small-scale prototype in a laboratory or simulated environment.
  • Innovation actions (IA): Activities that aim directly to produce plans and arrangements or designs for new, altered or improved products, processes or services. These activities may include prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting, large-scale product validation and market replication.
  • Coordination and support actions (CSA): Activities that contribute to the objectives of Horizon Europe. This excludes research and innovation (R&I) activities, except those carried out under the ‘Widening participation and spreading excellence’ component of the programme (part of ‘Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area’).
  • Programme co-fund actions (CoFund): A programme of activities established or implemented by legal entities managing or funding R&I programmes, other than EU funding bodies.

Expected Outcomes

• This topic aims at supporting activities that are enabling or contributing to one or several expected impacts of destination “Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden”. To that end, proposals under this topic should aim to deliver results that are directed, tailored towards and contributing to most of the following expected outcomes:
• Researchers and developers make the best use of the state-of-the-art knowledge and resources for an effective development of new treatment options for patients suffering from difficult-to-treat infections.
• Healthcare professionals and people living with difficult-to-treat infections are ultimately provided with the availability of clinically useful phage therapies.
• Regulators are provided with quantifiable, verifiable and replicable data on safety and efficacy of phage therapy for human use and move faster towards market approval of novel phage-based therapies against antimicrobial resistant infections.
• Citizens are engaged and informed on innovative phage-based treatments as alternative therapeutic options complementary to antibiotics.

Eligibility Criteria

• Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call/topic.
• A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
• Specific cases: 
  • Affiliated entities: Affiliated entities (i.e. entities with a legal or capital link to a beneficiary which participate in the action with similar rights and obligations to the beneficiaries, but which do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not become beneficiaries themselves) are allowed, if they are eligible for participation and funding.
  • Associated partners: Associated partners (i.e. entities which participate in the action without signing the grant agreement, and without the right to charge costs or claim contributions) are allowed, subject to any specific call/topic conditions. Entities without legal personality
  • Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees to protect the EU’s financial interests equivalent to those offered by legal persons.
  • EU bodies: Legal entities created under EU law including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.
• To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
  • the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions:
    • Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
  • the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States:
    • Aruba (NL), Bonaire (NL), Curação (NL), French Polynesia (FR), French Southern and Antarctic Territories (FR), Greenland (DK), New Caledonia (FR), Saba (NL), Saint Barthélemy (FR), Sint Eustatius (NL), Sint Maarten (NL), St. Pierre and Miquelon (FR), Wallis and Futuna Islands (FR).
  • countries associated to Horizon Europe:
    • Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Tunisia, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

For more information, visit EC.