We were disappointed to hear that there is a translational phage research “gap” in the UK. We agree that funding, and especially public funding, should be awarded with care. However, we are concerned that, despite being included in the Government’s AMR strategy, if not properly supported, the potential of phages to deliver therapeutics and commercial outputs will remain untested and untapped. There is a particular danger that translational phage research will be trapped in an impasse where it will miss out on research funding because it has not been able to prove its credibility, because of a lack of previous funding.