Strug­gling As­traZeneca ups the ante on mR­NA pipeline work

As­traZeneca is dou­bling down, again, on its ear­ly-stage mR­NA work.

The phar­ma gi­ant boost­ed its in­vest­ment in Mod­er­na last year, in­vest­ing an ad­di­tion­al $140 mil­lion in the biotech and up­ping its stake in the com­pa­ny to 9%. This morn­ing it’s adding $29 mil­lion to part­ner with the Ger­man start­up Ethris, fo­cus­ing on res­pi­ra­to­ry drugs with their plat­form tech.

Ethris’ team will use its tech to de­liv­er ge­net­ic cod­ing to cells in search of cre­at­ing new drugs that can be ef­fec­tive in asth­ma, chron­ic ob­struc­tive pul­monary dis­ease and id­io­path­ic pul­monary fi­bro­sis — a big fo­cus for As­traZeneca.

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