Dartmouth Engineering Professor Tillman Gerngross is "ready to offer me a preview of an $80 million round designed to propel his new biotech startup — Adagio Therapeutics — toward an IPO next year as it ramps up what he believes can be a contender for the most powerful antibody available to combat a virus that has repeatedly rattled the globe with waves of rising infection and death rates," reports Endpoints News.

"Gerngross may not be the first antibody developer to jump into the fray, or the second, but he still has characteristically large ambitions for his first molecule, which is being prepped for the clinic in January as his team readies trials both as a prophylaxis to prevent infection as well as a therapy."

... "The plan now, he tells me, is to move on from this financing round to another quick-step raise early next year 'and then probably take the company public.'

"There’s a longterm plan, he says, but right now the focus is all on Covid-19 and the pandemic upon us. The IND is on schedule to arrive in December. The Phase I can run in January, with Phase II initiation in February and pivotal data before the end of 2021."