Adagio raises $336 million to advance COVID-19 antibody
pharmafile | April 20, 2021 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Adagio, COVID-19, Financing, covid-19 treatment, pharma, pharma news
Adagio Therapeutics has financed $336 million to support the rapid advancement of their novel ADG20 antibody for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19.
The financing will enable continued advancement of ADG20, a candidate being developed for both the treatment and prevention of COVID-19, as well as potential future coronaviruses.
Promising preclinical data generated by Adagio and validated by the University of Oxford in a recent cell manuscript has shown that ADG20 uniquely combines potency, breadth and complete neutralisation of COVID-19, and all currently known variants of concern.
Adagio has initiated a Phase I study of ADG20 in healthy volunteers and a pivotal Phase I/II/III clinical trial in high-risk individuals with mild or moderate COVID-19, the STAMP trial. The trial is strategically designed to enable the rapid advancement of ADG20 to proof-of-concept data, which, if positive, are intended to support an Emergency Use Authorization submission.
ADG20 has the potential to impact viral replication and subsequent disease through multiple mechanisms of action, including direct blocking of viral entry into the host cell (neutralisation), and elimination of infected host cells.
Tillman Gerngross PhD, Co-Founder and CEO of Adagio, said: “The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a major health crisis worldwide, and even with emergency use authorizations for vaccines and antibody-based therapies, there remains a significant need for medications to treat and prevent COVID-19 infection.
“We are advancing ADG20 through a rapid development strategy based on preclinical data that demonstrate its best-in-class potential for treating all known variants of COVID-19 today.”
Peter Kolchinsky PhD, Managing Partner of RA Capital, one of the lead investors, added: “As we mapped out the vaccine and therapeutic landscape in the face of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants, we recognised that the world is going to need the kind of convenient, potent and long-lived, broadly neutralising antibodies that Adagio has developed.”
Jack Goddard
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