INCATE awards PhalconBio StageII Funding to advance Dual Action Phages for severe bacterial pneumonia

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Allschwil,Switzerland - INCATE, the Incubator for Antimicrobial Therapies in Europe, awarded Stage II funding to PhalconBio GmbH as its Selection Committee Meeting held virtually and at Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd. on September 2,2026. PhalconBio will receive company building support and €250.000 to advance its Dual Action Phage (DAP) programme. The Swiss company is developing an inhaled therapy for ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, designed to complement standard-of-care antibiotics.

P. aeruginosa VAP is a serious infection in critically ill patients receiving mechanical ventilation. Antibiotic resistance and bacterial biofilms can make treatment particularly difficult, creating a need for complementary treatments that can be delivere directly to the infected lung.

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 Advancing thepulmonary programme

The INCATE award will contribute to production of the candidate therapy and a planned randomised study in a mechanically ventilated porcine model of P. aeruginosa VAP, developed by the group of Prof. Antoni Torres and Dr. Laia Fernández-Barat at FRCB-IDIBAPS/Hospital Clínic Barcelona. The study will compare standard-of-care antibiotics alone with antibiotics plus inhaled DAPs, assessing antibacterial efficacy, pulmonary delivery and tolerability under conditions relevant to ventilated ICU patients.

“Stage II represents an important transition for PhalconBio: from demonstrating the potential of our technology to generating the evidence needed to advance a product toward patients,” says Dr. SamuelKilcher, PhalconBio Co-Founder and General Manager. “Together with our wider preclinical programme, this work will help build the evidence package for pharmaceutical licensing and future clinical development.”

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Building on international support

The award adds to earlier support from PACE, which awarded PhalconBio £1 million to advance its anti-Pseudomonas programme. PhalconBio is the sixth venture to receive Stage II funding from INCATE. Since its launch in 2021, INCATE has awarded over €1.7 million in total to support early-stage AMR ventures.

“We are pleased that, with the support of our industry partners, we are able to again provide important funding to one of our portfolio ventures. With PhalconBio, our selection committee is recognizing an innovative and highly targeted approach in the exciting and rapidly evolving field of phage therapy this year. We are convinced that positive results from the planned work would significantly benefit the progress of the project and could have a positive impact on the entire field,” says Holger Zimmermann, INCATE’s CEO.

About PhalconBio

PhalconBio is developing Dual Action Phages(DAPs), a new generation of precision antibacterials designed for severe infections caused by difficult-to-treat bacteria. The company’s technology combines the natural ability of bacteriophages to selectively infect and kill their bacterial targets, with a phage-encoded second mechanism, delivered in the form of antibacterial proteins. This approach reprograms the target bacteria at the infection site into manufacturing such antibacterial proteins, effectively using the pathogen against itself.

This dual mechanism is designed to enhance bacterial killing, limit opportunities for resistance escape and retain th precision of phage therapy. PhalconBio’s Dual ActionPhage technology is a platform with broad potential beyond the lead VAP programme, including e.g., burn wound infections. By adapting the phages and antibacterial proteins they deliver, supported by AI-assisted protein design, it can support treatments for other indications and drug-resistant pathogens.

PhalconBio works with leading scientific and clinical partners,including ETH Zurich, the University of Basel, Institut Pasteur, Loughborough University and the Barcelona clinical research group, to translate its platform into a new class of antibacterial medicines.

About INCATE

INCATE is a not-for-profit partnership focused on the development of new therapies and interventions that help reduce the prevalence and impact of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). Our team of translational and basic research experts, industry partners, entrepreneurs, and investors provide early-stage ventures with the advice, community, and funding needed to accelerate their innovations. INCATE is a partnership from the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), the Leibniz Institute for Natural Produc Research and Infection Biology Hans Knöll Institute, the National Centre o fCompetence in Research – AntiResist (NCCR AntiResist), and the University of Basel. INCATE’s venture partners are Basilea, the CysticFibrosis Foundation, MSD, Roche, and Shionogi.