Startup launches with $245 million for twice yearly asthma treatment

A new biotech has raised $245 million to test a new asthma medication that could compete with one sold by Amgen and AstraZeneca.

The startup, Aiolos Therapeutics, was founded by former Genentech colleagues Khurem Farooq and Tony Adamis after they stumbled upon a drug being developed by Chinese pharma company Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. The two men believed there was an unmet need in asthma, and in Jiangsu’s drug, a potential game-changer.

The experimental medication, AIO-001, is similar to Amgen and AstraZeneca’s new product Tezspire: Both work by inhibiting the thymic stromal lymphopoietin, or TSLP, which is over-expressed by people with asthma and causes airway inflammation. (Another startup, Upstream Bio, announced Tuesday that its subcutaneous TSLP inhibitor is also showing promise in a Phase 1 trial.)

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