From Patient to Advocate – Introducing Phage Therapy to India

Mr. Pranav Johri, Founder of Vitalis Phage Therapy, India, will join the Phage Therapy Congress to present a talk entitled “From Patient to Advocate – Introducing Phage Therapy to India”.

Pranav Johri and his wife Apurva Virmani Johri are the founders of Vitalis Phage Therapy, the first-of-its-kind initiative to enable phage therapy for patients in India.

Pranav suffered from an antibiotic-resistant infection in 2016 and underwent phage therapy at the Eliava Institute in Georgia. He was the first known patient from India to take phage therapy. Based on their own treatment experience, and in partnership with the Eliava Institute, Pranav and Apurva founded Vitalis Phage Therapy in 2018.

The aim of Vitalis Phage Therapy is to make phage therapy accessible as a treatment option for every person suffering from an antibiotic-resistant infection or chronic infection.

Its activities include:

  1. Phage therapy awareness initiatives
  2. Enabling local phage treatment for patients in India thus eliminating the need to travel to another country for treatment
  3. Establishing diagnostic testing with phages in India to provide quicker access to the phage therapy
  4. Working with medical institutions to facilitate phage therapy for their patients, and,
  5. Documenting phage therapy case studies and case reports in medical and scientific journals

Since the inception of Vitalis, more than 175 people have been able to undertake phage therapy in India.

Targeting Phage Therapy 2023
6th World Conference
June 1-2, 2023 – Paris, France