1) Phages are specific for each bacteria species or sub-species. Can't treat E.coli and Klebsiella with the same phages like we do with antibiotics. Not even the test kits are the same. There are hundreds of phages for each bacteria species and only a few of them would work for each patient.
2) Phages are live organisms (as much as you can call a virus "alive"). The shelf life is very very short. A couple of days probably.
1 + 2 => A hospital would have to store thousands of different phages to be able to treat most of it's patients and it would have to replace those stores twice a week.
> hospital would have to store thousands of different phages to be able to treat most of it's patients and it would have to replace those stores twice a week
Couldn’t you create a few compound batches that treat sets of bacteria, balancing distribution cost and side effects?
Do that a little, remove phages that don’t work better than antibiotics, tailor for local conditions and I doubt you’re adding more than a few dozen medicines to the hospital’s inventory.
> shelf life is very very short. A couple of days probably
Much slower, we are still using 100 year old antibiotics. Money one phage is going to make is much smaller. This is not cost effective to go through the whole process.
How is this different from antibiotics?
Nothing about phages makes them not worth developing. Exhibit A: they’re being researched and developed.