The Problem:

The world increasing population brings major global efforts to improve crop global yield while healing our soil from harmful past humanity decisions.

20-30% of yield loss is due to more than 200 known bacterial diseases, some have no current solutions, others have suboptimal environmentally toxic solutions.

Our Solution:

EcoPhage is leveraging nature’s biodiversity by using the natural enemies of bacteria-bacteriophages (phages): viruses that specifically attack & replicate in their target bacteria. After bacteria’s full elimination they are naturally biodegraded leaving no residues.

EcoPhage characterizes and selects specific phages of interest from their immense diversity in nature, selecting the best candidates, which we like to call- the ‘super phages’. Based on our cutting-edge technology we further select combinations of these super phages that will effectively eradicate the harmful bacteria, while preventing any future resistance.

In contrast to other chemical available solutions, phages attack specifically only the disease-causing bacteria and are safe to all other organisms, including beneficial bacteria, insects, animals and humans.

Team:

Our R&D activity is divided into two departments-

One is the microbiology department operating our high throughput phage screening and functional analysis to generate the “super-phage” cocktails;

And the other is the phytopathology department which receives these cocktails and tests them on the relevant plant disease models.

Our multidisciplinary team-capabilities includes: microbiology, data science; agronomy; industrial biotechnology and business development all creating a real global ag-tech value.

Status:

At present-day we’ve reached up to 80% efficacy in disease reduction in plant model. This number is highly competitive with current chemical solutions. We were able to test successfully cocktails for two different indications, for bacterial speck and bacterial spot which are relevant to tomatoes and peppers, and initiated our greenhouse trials.

We see the two products in development not only as our two first products in the pipeline, but also as a POC to our technological platform that can be implemented for every disease-causing bacterium in any plant.

We are taking advantage of these bacteria by using them as our production systems- once a phage infects its target bacterium, it replicates inside it. The bacterial cells then burst, releasing 100 times more virus. This biotechnological tool makes our production process environmentally friendly and cost-effective.

Products:

EcoPhage will have two lines of products for the different plant diseases, the one is market-ready shelf products and the others is costume made as immediate on the spot solutions for farmers local outbreaks.

Vision:

Our vision is to create a global data hub & AI analysis for bacterial diseases, in parallel to our two lines of products.

This will allow us to give real time and long-term solutions to the farmer, to protect the environment from collateral damage duo to non-selective and toxic solutions, and to keep our company's unique position- continually developing next generation phage solutions based on this data for predicted disease outbarks globally.

Go to market strategy:

Our basic business model is B to B- developing our final products and distributing them through major ag -players such as Bayer, Corteva, BASF, Syngenta and others as distributers.

We plan to reach the market by 2025, launching globally at 2028.

Market size:

The estimated antibacterial market at 2027 is more than $17B. This estimation does not include bacterial diseases that currently have no available solution, resulting in a much bigger potential market with an unmet need.

Call for action:

EcoPhage recently launched its round A kickoff, aiming to expend its pipeline and to fund existing products field trials and regulation. The company also plans to achieve a POC for its global data hub & AI analysis for bacterial diseases.