Can a small biotech suc­cess­ful­ly tack­le an Ever­est climb like Alzheimer’s? Athi­ra has $85M and some in­flu­en­tial back­ers ready to give it a shot

There haven’t been a lot of big ven­ture rounds for biotech com­pa­nies look­ing to run a Phase II study in Alzheimer’s.

The field has been a dis­as­ter over the past decade. Amy­loid didn’t pan out as a tar­get — go­ing down in a litany of Phase III fail­ures — and is now mak­ing its last stand at Bio­gen. Tau is a com­er, but when you look around and all you see is de­struc­tion, the idea of back­ing a start­up try­ing to find com­plex cock­tails to swing the course of this dev­il­ish­ly com­pli­cat­ed mem­o­ry-wast­ing dis­ease would daunt the pluck­i­est in­vestors.

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