Scrap Rightmove sale of £1billion pandemic lab to develop ‘friendly’ viruses that can treat antibiotic resistant illnesses, MPs urge

MPs have urged that a “dormant” Covid mega-lab currently for sale on Rightmove should be used as a research center to develop cutting-edge drugs.

The Rosalind Franklin Laboratory in Leamington Spa opened in June 2021 and was the UK’s first mega Covid testing laboratory, processing 8.5 million swabs during the pandemic.

Officials said the £1.1bn laboratory would “play an indispensable role” in responding to future disease threats, but it was suddenly closed just 18 months later and appeared on the property’s website in November.

A group of deputies from various parties has now asked the Government to use the facility to research microscopic viruses called phages, which hunt and destroy bacteria.

Scientists hope that “friendly viruses” can help combat antibiotic resistance, the phenomenon where bacteria evolve to become resistant to currently used drugs.

Phages are normally harmless to humans, but can be deadly to bacteria.

They work by penetrating the bacterial membrane and replicating inside the cell until it bursts open, killing the bacteria.

The key to harnessing them for treatment against deadly diseases is to find phages that are extremely efficient at killing the strains of bacteria that cause them.

The World Health Organization has described antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as “one of the major global threats to public health and development.”

It said bacterial AMR was directly responsible for 1.27 million deaths worldwide in 2019 and contributed to 4.95 million deaths.

In its report, published today, the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee said the UK is at an “impasse” because phages have not been developed to required standards. As a result, they cannot be used in clinical trials.

To meet UK standards, phages must be produced in new manufacturing plants.

However, investment in compliant plants will only be justified after successful clinical trials.

He said the UK needs to break this licensing impasse to allow phages to be used as a life-saving treatment.

Greg Clark, chair of the committee, said: “Phages offer a potential answer to growing global concerns about antimicrobial resistance.

‘But the development of phage therapies is at a stalemate, with clinical trials needing new advanced manufacturing plants, but investment requiring clinical trials to have proven effective.

‘The Committee calls on the Government to consider whether the mothballed Rosalind Franklin laboratory in the West Midlands could provide suitable facilities.

‘The laboratory, which has already received more than £1bn of public funding, was set up by the Government to end the shortfall in testing capacity that has so hampered the national response to Covid.

‘It consists of modern, secure laboratory facilities and was intended to be an important source of national resilience against future pandemics.

‘But the Rosalind Franklin Laboratory suddenly appeared for sale on property website Rightmove, to the astonishment of the scientific and health communities.

“Our Phage Committee report calls for the Rosalind Franklin Laboratory to be considered for this purpose, rather than losing it to the nation and science in a liquidation.”

Industry insiders say the Government is trying to offload the world-leading facility at a fraction of the cost to taxpayers, who have been forced to fund almost double its initial £588m budget.

Instead of being at the forefront of the fight against Covid, the project opened six months late, faced problems with equipment, staff and construction and typically processed only 11,500 tests per day before closing 18 months later.

Desperate estate agents are now offering packages that will see them split up the bespoke Leamington Spa facility in Warwickshire to attract “emerging, scale-up and small and medium-sized businesses”.

Real estate agent Avison Young is touting the sale of the 236,231-square-foot site as a “can’t-miss opportunity,” but casual browsers on the property’s website may be confused by the “dirty-clean” corridor features.

The planned sale breaks a promise that the site would help Britain combat future epidemics.

Phages have been used as therapy for over 100 years, but have never been licensed for therapeutic use in the UK.

They have only been used as “compassionate” treatments of last resort in isolated cases.

One such case involved a 15-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis who had a fatal bacterial infection and had less than a one per cent chance of surviving before being successfully treated with a three-phage cocktail by doctors at Great Ormond Hospital. Street in London.

The Committee calls on the Government, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and phage scientists to work together to find a way to fund phage research and license the use of their products.

It also urges the MHRA to consider allowing the compassionate use of UK-produced phages for medical cases of last resort and review how current regulations would govern the liability of doctors and hospitals who used these phages.

Professor Joanne Santini, who works at the UCL Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology and contributed to the report, said: “The Covid pandemic has made us acutely aware of the threat that infectious agents pose to health and health systems.

‘The inappropriate and excessive use of antibiotics poses an even greater threat: millions of people are dying worldwide from infections caused by antimicrobial-resistant bacteria.

‘Phages will be essential weapons in the arsenal to combat AMR.

“Gathering evidence from both compassionate access use cases and clinical trials will be critical to the success of our use of phages.

“To make this feasible in the UK, clear regulatory guidelines, manufacturing facilities for GMP phage production and funding will be essential.”