The lungs are quiet until they are not. Ask anyone living with COPD or asthma what a “common cold” feels like. It is not common. It is a spiral. A rhinovirus shows up uninvited, and suddenly oxygen feels like a luxury item. That is the problem Altesa BioSciences decided to chase down, not with sympathy, but with science.
Altesa BioSciences closed an oversubscribed $75M Series B to push its antiviral agenda forward. Forbion led the round, with Sanofi stepping in and existing investors Medicxi, Pitango, and Atlantic Partners doubling down. When that caliber of capital crowds into a clinical stage story, it is not charity. It is conviction.
Respect to CEO Brett P. Giroir, MD, and CMO Kate Knobil, MD, for steering this with steady hands. And salute to Co Founders George R. Painter, PhD, and Seth Rudnick, MD, who saw the upstream play before it was fashionable. They built this thesis early: if viruses light the match that ignites COPD and asthma exacerbations, why keep arguing with the smoke?
Altesa BioSciences is developing vapendavir, an oral direct acting antiviral designed to block rhinovirus from entering human cells and replicating. Rhinovirus is responsible for roughly 50% of acute COPD exacerbations. 50%. Yet there are no approved targeted therapies aimed straight at that trigger. Vapendavir is positioned as a first in class answer to that gap.
The clinical signals are not whispers. In a Phase 2 placebo controlled rhinovirus challenge study in COPD patients, vapendavir improved upper and lower respiratory symptoms, shortened illness duration, reduced viral load and inflammatory markers, and helped preserve small airway lung function. That is not cosmetic improvement. That is a shift in trajectory.
The $75M will drive the Phase 2B CARDINAL trial, a randomized, double blind, placebo controlled multicenter study across the United States and United Kingdom in GOLD stage II–IV COPD patients with documented rhinovirus infections. Add in the collaboration with bioMérieux and its BIOFIRE SPOTFIRE respiratory solution to rapidly identify eligible patients at point of care, and you start to see the strategy breathe.
This is what smart biotech looks like. Identify the true driver of cost and suffering. Build a molecule that goes at the root. Surround it with diagnostics that tighten the feedback loop. Bring in investors who understand that preventing an exacerbation is worth more than treating the aftermath.
Altesa BioSciences is not chasing noise. It is chasing viruses. And in chronic lung disease, that distinction feels like oxygen returning to a room that has been tight for far too long.
