Tillman Gerngross has a simple goal: he wants to find one antibody that can both treat and prevent Covid-19, no matter how much the virus mutates. While many biotech companies are obsessed with making a vaccine, Gerngross’ company Adagio is going all-in on the promise of monoclonal antibodies, engineered human antibodies that can bind with and neutralize the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It already has a promising candidate: ADG20, which just started human clinical trials last week.
Adagio has moved quickly — this is its third funding round in less than a year. Combined, the company has raised a total of $466 million since it was spun out of one of Gerngross’ other companies, Adimab, in July 2020. Adimab made a name for itself by using its proprietary platform to discover potentially therapeutic antibodies, which it then sells to other companies. “Adimab never develops anything, we just discover and let other people deal with the development,” Gerngross says.
While monoclonal antibodies have proven to be durable treatments against cancer and chronic diseases like Crohn’s, they can sometimes struggle against infectious disease, thanks to the speed at which viruses can mutate.. Eli Lilly’s antibody bamlanivimab, which was granted an Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA in November 2020, originally prevented thousands of patients from being hospitalized after getting Covid-19.