The present Eliava Institute is a juridical successor of the first Bacteriological Institute, which was  founded in 1923 by a distinguished Georgian physician , bacteriologist and phage researcher professor George Eliava.

Another famous French-Canadian scientist Felix D'Herelle - a discoverer of bacteriophages, played an extraordinary role in the development of the Eliava Institute.

The main idea of these two scientists was creation of the World Centre of Phage Research and Phage Therapy in Tbilisi, Georgia. Unfortunately, this first wonderful example of the international collaboration could not completely realize, because of the dramatic events taking place all over in the former Soviet Union in the 1930-ies of the XX century. This time coincided with the period of Stalin's Terror.

Professor George Eliava was an open-minded and progressive person, educated in Switzerland and France, therefore having broad international contacts, was blamed to be a "People's Enemy". He was accused in sabotage. In particular, George Eliava was recognized to be guilty in the purposeful poisoning of the drinking water wells with the pathogenic bacteria. This kind of false accusations were very common at that time. Professor Eliava was executed in 1937 together with his other contemporaries, representatives of the Soviet intelligencia, enginners, musicians, writers, actors, etc.

Felix D'Herelle left Georgia in 1934, after that his further research in the field of bacteriophage therapy was discontinued.

During its long history the Eliava Institute has been known under different titles. Since the 40's the Institute was known as the Tbilisi Institute of Vaccine and Sera. At this time the Institute used to be under the authority of the All-Union  Ministry of Health. Afterwards since the 80's the Institute moved into the All-Union Ministry of Bio-Production and got a new title - Scientific-Industrial Union (SIU) “Bacteriophage" The SIU "Bacteriophage" was formed of the two major parts - Scientific Department (Research Institute) and Industrial Department, the last consisted of the 10 manufacturing plants. Altogether about 800 people used to work at the SIU "Bacteriophage" among which 100 were engaged into research. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, announcement of state independence by the Georgian government in 1991, ceasing of the centralized financial support from Moscow, the Industrial Department of the SIU "Bacteriophage" was broken into 10 legal entities and completely privatized in 1994-1995.

During the Soviet period the Eliava Institute played an important role in elaboration of the novel biological preparations and manufacturing of the products against almost all major bacterial and viral diseases, such as anthrax, rubies, tuberculosis, bruccellosis, salmonellosis, dysentery, etc. The Eliava was the leading organization in Bacteriophage Research, production of the phage preparations and their practical application. Contribution of the Eliava IBMV scientists in production of the diagnostic, prophylactic and therapeutic preparations (bacteriophage “cocktails” biological anti-bacterial and immunological medications) against bacterial infections and their application in different fields (medicine, veterinary, environmental protection) is recognized worldwide.

As it was mentioned above the Industrial Department of the former SIU "Bacteriophage" was completely privatized and fell apart into ten small companies. Only three of them: “BioPharm JSC", “BioChimPharm JSC" and "Immunogen Ltd” are successful. They produce a variety of pharmaceuticals and biolocical products, such as bacterial probiotics/eubiotics, a limited number of bacteriophage preparations for human use, veterinary vaccines , etc.

The present Eliava Institute was developed on the base of the former Scientific Department. Since 1997 it moved under the authority of the  Georgian Academy of Sciences.