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PhageCocktails
Access & Compassionate Use

Need phage therapy now?

If you or someone you love has a serious, drug-resistant infection, real compassionate-use pathways exist today. This page points you to the people and centers who can actually help — and explains, honestly, how access works and how long it takes.

Important: PhageCocktails is a research-and-education project — we are not a treatment provider and cannot supply phages or arrange care. The links below are independent organizations. Always work through a licensed physician.

Where to turn

In rough order of where most people should start.

Phage Directory

Start here

Global · clinician-facing

The first stop. A worldwide network that issues “phage alerts” and connects clinicians to labs that can source phages matched to a specific patient’s isolate.

phage.directory ↗

UC San Diego IPATH

US clinical

United States

North America’s first phage therapy center; treats life-threatening multidrug-resistant infections case-by-case under the FDA’s expanded-access (compassionate-use) pathway.

idgph.ucsd.edu/research/center-innovative-phage-applications-and-therapeutics ↗

Eliava Phage Therapy Center

International

Tbilisi, Georgia

The world’s oldest phage center (since 1923); treats antibiotic-resistant infections with off-the-shelf and custom preparations, including international patients.

eptc.ge ↗

Queen Astrid Military Hospital

EU magistral

Brussels, Belgium

Operates under Belgium’s pioneering “magistral” framework, where a pharmacist compounds a tailor-made phage preparation to a physician’s prescription.

www.mil.be ↗

Phage Australia

Australia

Australia

A national, MRFF/NHMRC-funded network running a standardized, end-to-end personalized phage-therapy pipeline.

www.phageaustralia.org ↗

The pathway, step by step

  1. 1 · A treating physician identifies the exact bacterial strain (culture + susceptibility).
  2. 2 · Through Phage Directory or a center, a phage is matched to that strain (from a bank, or hunted).
  3. 3 · The physician applies for access — an FDA emergency IND in the US, or a national framework elsewhere — with IRB/ethics oversight.
  4. 4 · The matched phage (often a cocktail, usually alongside antibiotics) is administered and monitored.

See the regulatory pathway for the framework details, and the landscape for the centers.

Access FAQ

Can I buy phage therapy?
No — and be wary of anyone selling phage “treatments” directly to patients online. As of 2026 no phage therapeutic is an approved drug in the US or EU. Legitimate access runs through a licensed physician under a regulated pathway (a clinical trial, an FDA emergency IND, or a national framework like Belgium’s magistral system).
What is an emergency IND (eIND)?
In the US, the FDA can authorize a single patient to receive an investigational therapy (like a matched phage) outside a trial when no satisfactory alternative exists. A treating physician applies; the phage is then matched to the patient’s bacterial isolate. This is how the landmark 2016 Acinetobacter case was treated.
How long does matching take?
Phages must be matched to the patient’s specific strain, which can take days to weeks depending on whether a matching phage already exists in a bank or must be hunted. This is the central bottleneck the field is working to shorten — and why building phage banks matters.
I’m a clinician — where do I start?
Phage Directory is the fastest route: it can issue a “phage alert” to labs worldwide for a specific organism, and connect you with centers (IPATH, TAILOR, Phage Australia, Belgium) experienced in the eIND/compassionate-use process.