FRANKFURT — Universitätsmedizin Frankfurt launched the €15 million EU-funded REPhRAME project in June 2026. The project will lead a randomized clinical trial investigating phage therapy combined with microbiome restoration for recurrent urinary tract infections.

The European Union's Horizon Europe program provided the €15 million in funding for the REPhRAME project. The project is planned to run for five years, led by Universitätsmedizin Frankfurt and coordinated by Prof. Dr. Maria J.G.T. Vehreschild.

More than 400 million people worldwide develop a urinary tract infection each year, and the infections recur in 30 to 50 percent of cases. "Recurrent urinary tract infections place a substantial burden on patients and healthcare systems, yet existing treatment options are simply insufficient for many affected individuals," said Maria J.G.T. Vehreschild, Head of Infectious Diseases at Universitätsmedizin Frankfurt.

REPhRAME is the first project to investigate this combination of phage therapy and gut microbiome restoration to prevent recurrent urinary tract infections within a randomized clinical trial framework. The clinical trial will compare three approaches: phage therapy alone, phage therapy combined with antibiotics, and phage therapy followed by microbiome restoration.

The first treatment step in the trial uses SNIPR001, a phage cocktail developed with CRISPR gene-editing technology, which targets specific strains of the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli. The second treatment step uses INTESTIFIX 001, a product from the Cologne Microbiota Bank, to restore the gut microbiome.

Vehreschild stated, "REPhRAME aims to transform phage therapy from a promising research concept into a clinically validated treatment option - with robust data on safety, efficacy, and implementation." The project will also develop AI-based models to predict which patients may benefit most from the therapy. Accompanying studies within the REPhRAME project will examine how phages function and are broken down in the human body, the immune responses they trigger, and how the microbiome changes throughout treatment.

The REPhRAME consortium consists of 16 partners from eight European countries. Consortium partners include SNIPR Biome, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, German Center for Infection Research, Hannover Medical School, LINQ management GmbH, University Hospital Cologne, HUN-REN Biological Research center, Riga Stradiņš University, Leiden University Medical Center, Jafral, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Bern, University of Zurich, University of Leicester, and University of Reading. "By developing new therapies against bacterial pathogens, we are continuing the legacy of Paul Ehrlich, who discovered the first antibiotic in Frankfurt and thereby initiated medicine's successful fight against infectious diseases," said Enrico Schleiff, President of Goethe University.

Why It Matters

This project marks a major research effort into alternative treatments for recurrent urinary tract infections, which affect hundreds of millions globally. The €15 million funding from the Horizon Europe program supports a multi-national collaboration to conduct a clinical trial, potentially moving phage therapy and microbiome restoration closer to validated medical practice. The research aims to address current treatment insufficiencies and provide data on the safety and efficacy of these methods.