Aerium Therapeutics has ceased operations, ending its mission to bring to market new antibodies to protect immunocompromised people from Covid-19, develop highly sought-after long Covid treatments and prepare for the threat of future pandemics.
The Boston and Lausanne, Switzerland, biotech recently shuttered, CEO Rajeev Venkayya confirmed to Endpoints News. The decision was made in “early summer,” he said. An update to Aerium’s website within the past three weeks now displays the message “Aerium Therapeutics has ended operations” alongside contact information for Swiss and Foxboro, MA, locations.
Rajeev VenkayyaLaunched in spring 2022, the company had raised about $70 million from Omega Funds and F-Prime Capital, Venkayya told Endpoints. Venkayya had joined the company after leading the vaccines unit at Takeda. As a board member of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, he also hoped Aerium could play a role in thwarting the threat of future pandemics and epidemics.
“We have run into the same challenge that every company working on monoclonals for SARS-CoV-2 has faced, which is the challenge of viral evolution and these very targeted therapies, monoclonal antibodies, failing because of that evolution,” Venkayya said in a Tuesday morning phone interview.
“This is the result of a very pliable virus being constantly exposed to what we call immune pressure from people that have been exposed to Covid, that have antibodies and people that have been vaccinated. It’s been difficult to keep up for anyone.”
The company had peaked at about 20 employees, Venkayya said. Aerium’s C-suite also included technology chief Joanne Beck and medical chief Prakash Bhuyan. The board included Omega’s Otello Stampacchia and former Alnylam CEO John Maraganore, among others.
Omega and F-Prime “have been very, very supportive throughout, as has our board, but we all agreed that this was the right decision at this time,” the CEO said. He’s working with the two firms in an advisory capacity in the near term, he said.
Shifting landscape of Covid R&D
The shutdown comes as Apple Tree Partners debuts its Covid and antiviral biotech, Red Queen Therapeutics, which has been in the works for multiple years. Other biopharmas have received government funds for potential new Covid-19 therapeutics, including ModeX Therapeutics, Regeneron and others.
Meanwhile, Vir Biotechnology, which had an emergency use antibody that got revoked, said last week that it’s phasing out its Covid work, among other virology R&D.
The landscape for new Covid therapeutics, vaccines and prevention tools is barren relative to the early days of the pandemic when multiple drugmakers rushed their R&D engines to find new tools for the virus. After years of trying, one biotech, Invivyd, gained an emergency use authorization for its prevention drug Pemgarda earlier this spring.
“We’re in our fifth year of the pandemic, the emergency phase is behind us, there is declining interest and support of work in the Covid space and then we have this risk that comes with monoclonal antibodies,” Venkayya said. “The ability to raise capital to support the programs is very low, we found, and so we decided to close down the company.”
Aerium had tested two monoclonal antibodies as a prophylactic for SARS-CoV-2 in a Phase 1 study in the Netherlands but pandemic variants sidelined the antibodies’ effectiveness, Venkayya told Endpoints last August. He had previously compared the antibody’s potential to that of Eli Lilly’s bebtelovimab, which had received emergency use authorization from the FDA but saw that clearance later revoked due to new variants.
The biotech then looked to see if one of its antibodies, dubbed AER-002, could serve as a potential treatment for long Covid in individuals still exhibiting long-term symptoms of previous variants. Researchers at the University of California San Francisco ran an exploratory, placebo-controlled study, and Venkayya said he expects the data will be available later this year. Other long Covid biotechs have failed or fizzled out, including Axcella. Large pharmaceutical companies largely stayed out of the puzzling condition.
After that initial investigation, the biotech didn’t plan to advance AER-002 because it didn’t work against current variants. But the startup would digest the findings and study follow-up antibodies for newer strains.
“While AER-002 won’t continue to be developed, if there is a sign that it is efficacious, then that will create an opportunity for anybody else developing monoclonal antibodies against this virus to test those antibodies against long Covid, and I think it could give hope to those that are suffering from the condition,” Venkayya said.
It licensed three monoclonal antibodies as part of that mission. It nabbed AER003 from Lausanne University Hospital, AER004 from Rockefeller University and AER005 from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, the company said last October. “Those licenses will revert to the institutions,” Venkayya said.
The startup also hoped to create options for immunocompromised patients. AstraZeneca’s Evusheld, a long-acting antibody for pre-exposure prophylaxis, saw its emergency use cut off in January 2023. The UK biotech’s next attempt, dubbed sipavibart, recently succeeded in Phase 3.
Further yet, Aerium had ambitions to create a small molecule nucleotide analog for SARS-CoV-2 and potentially other viral threats. The goal was to create a safer, more tolerable antiviral than Pfizer’s Paxlovid, Venkayya previously told Endpoints.