Paoli-based Audacity Therapeutics is looking to raise $150 million to test if existing SARS drugs could be used to treat COVID-19, writes Allie Miller for PhillyVoice.

The Audacity R4 Medicines Evergreen Fund has been launched by Barbara Handelin, CEO of Audacity Therapeutics.

Both Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and COVID-19 are caused by coronaviruses. While SARS was more lethal, it did not spread as easily as COVID-19 and vanished within two years. Handelin believes that due to its similarities, there is a chance that an existing SARS drug could treat COVID-19.

“Some of our colleagues were working on this 10 years ago,” said Handelin. “We were unprepared for this crisis despite having 90 percent of the science on coronaviruses.”

If any of the drugs prove to be effective against COVID-19, the company will produce it at local manufacturing facilities.

The public benefit pharmaceutical company is hoping to reach its fundraising goal through investors such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has already donated to coronavirus research, and BlackRock, the investment management giant.

Read more about Audacity Therapeutics from PhillyVoice here.

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