(Bloomberg) -- Former White House biodefense adviser Rajeev Venkayya is taking the reins at a new venture-backed company that aims to fill a gap in treatments to combat Covid-19 and future pandemic threats.

Venkayya, who stepped down as head of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.’s vaccines unit last month, is now the chief executive officer at Aerium Therapeutics, a biotech company backed by Omega Funds. The company launched Tuesday with an initial focus on developing new monoclonal antibodies against Covid. 

The drugmaker is advancing with two such antibodies that have shown promise against the delta variant as well as omicron and its offshoots in animal tests, according to Aerium. The data will be submitted to a medical journal, meaning it hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed.

Aerium sees an opportunity to expand in the field and a need for new tools to help patients, especially vulnerable people who haven’t been able to benefit from vaccines, after omicron overpowered some antibody treatments and raised questions about the efficacy of others.

“The virus evolved very quickly around vaccines and therapeutics,” Venkayya said in an interview. “We increasingly will be trying to get away from the variant-chasing game and into the space of broadly protective therapeutics.”

Contingency Plan

The company is hoping to move the antibodies into human testing this summer so that they become eligible for emergency-use authorization in the “near future,” assuming the data continues to be positive, according to Venkayya, who developed a U.S. pandemic flu plan in the George W. Bush administration.

Aerium, which has operations in Boston and Switzerland, plans to find at least one partner to help scale up manufacturing and add assets by teaming up with biotech companies and universities. Influenza, other coronaviruses and the respiratory virus RSV are among potential targets, Venkayya said.

“It’s clear that we can do better,” he said. “The reality is that across many viral diseases, we don’t have good treatments.”

Otello Stampacchia, Omega’s founder, is Aerium’s chairman, while John Maraganore, former CEO at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, has also joined the board. Giuseppe Pantaleo and Didier Trono in Switzerland are the scientific founders.

Venkayya said the company is committed to making sure any tools it develops will be available to lower and middle-income countries at affordable prices. The company said it has secured “substantial” financing led by Omega, with participation from F-Prime Capital. Venkayya declined to say how much, adding that Aerium intends to raise more funds in the next few months.

Aerium also is focusing on therapeutic combinations that could limit the impact of resistance that may develop against single antiviral treatments, he said. The goal is to help respond to whatever comes next, whether it’s a Covid-19 variant or another viral threat.

“Every time the community has said that we are just around the corner from the pandemic ending, the community has been proven wrong,” he said. “While there is hope that at some point we’ll be on the other side, you have to have a contingency plan in case things don’t turn around.”

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