Pardes Biosciences merges with SPAC for $276 million

Pardes Biosciences, whose lead drug candidate is an oral antiviral that blocks SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has merged with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), raising $276 million. The funds will aid development of Pardes’s antiviral, PBI-0451, and the firm’s method of using reversible covalent chemistry to design drugs. PBI-0451 inhibits SARS-CoV-2’s main protease, preventing it from replicating. Pardes says the protease is similar across coronaviruses, raising the possibility that the drug might work on a broad spectrum of viruses.