Even after out-licensing a pair of hepatitis C therapeutic candidates to Vertex ($VRTX), which was bidding on finding a contender as a new wave of transformational drugs approached the market, South San Francisco-based Alios BioPharma stubbornly maintained a very low profile. But it went public with the news that the biotech has raised $41 million from some A-list investors from the Big Pharma world to back a mid-stage development program for AL-8176, an anti-RSV nucleoside analog.
Existing players Novo Ventures, SR One (GlaxoSmithKline), Roche Venture Fund and Novartis Ventures all contributed to the round. And the biotech was able to maintain its air of mystery by adding that an unnamed investor had led the financing.
Last spring Alios CEO Larry Blatt boasted that AL-8176--then starting a Phase I study--had the potential to go on to become a front-line therapy for RSV, which kills about 200,000 children each year. Alios licensed out VX-135, still in Vertex's hands. But the biotech plans to hang on to this new program, at least for now.
"This funding will allow Alios to retain ownership and control of our novel, first-in-class anti-respiratory virus development programs," Blatt said in a statement.
- here's the release