In year 3 of the pandemic, a new Covid-19 biotech takes flight with an antibody combo and Takeda's ex-vaccines chief at the helm

Year three of the Covid-19 pandemic just began, but this far in, Omega Funds thinks it’s not too late to launch a biotech to fight SARS-CoV-2 just as another subvariant takes flight and cases rise in various regions.

The prolific biotech incubator poached Takeda’s former vaccines leader Rajeev Venkayya and inked research agreements with Swiss universities to create Aerium Therapeutics, named after the Latin word for airborne. With the cover now off, Aerium can put to work two monoclonal antibodies that it says have shown neutralization against Omicron and its subvariants in preclinical testing that is yet to be peer reviewed.