Cambridge, UK, 04 May 2023:
Tay Therapeutics, a University of Dundee spin-out, has achieved a significant milestone by securing its second licensing deal with Vyne Therapeutics. The agreement could potentially generate over $65 million in milestone revenues for the first indications and up to 10% of net annual sales in tiered royalty payments.
Tay Therapeutics is committed to developing small-molecule drugs for anti-inflammatory and orphan indications, aiming to discover first-in-class medicines that make a real difference to patients. Their licensed oral Bromodomain and Extra-Terminal motif (BET) inhibitor has shown potential in treating immuno-inflammatory and fibrotic disorders.
o2h Ventures is proud to have led the seed investment round in Tay Therapeutics (previously known as In4Derm) in 2021 from its human health EIS fund. The company also made a follow-on investment from its human health knowledge-intensive fund to support Tay Therapeutics’ continued growth and development.
This latest licensing deal with Vyne Therapeutics marks a significant achievement for Tay Therapeutics, showcasing the company’s ability to bridge the divide between the discovery of medicines and patients. The deal is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the team at Tay Therapeutics.
Dr. Tim Sparey, Executive Chair of Tay Therapeutics, stated
“We are delighted to announce this deal with VYNE Therapeutics. It follows the licensing of TAY-B1 (now known as VYN201), a topical BET inhibitor in 2021 and completes the out-licensing of our BET inhibitor projects to a partner with the development expertise in inflammatory and fibrotic diseases where there is high unmet need.”
Dr. Andrew Woodland, CEO of Tay Therapeutics, stated
“The second deal with VYNE is the culmination of 2 years of discovery and development of BET inhibitors with differentiated selectivity and safety profiles. I’m delighted for the Tay team and consider VYNE ideally placed to continue developing and maximising the value of the BET inhibitor projects. This deal further validates Tay’s business model of growing organically using revenues to support development activities with ~£6m received in upfront and milestone payments from the VYNE collaboration to date.”
Sunil Shah, CEO of o2h Ventures, stated:
“The team at Tay Therapeutics have shown the tenacity that is required to discover and develop drugs. This was our first investment in Scotland and given the success and the supportive ecosystem and tier 1 universities, we will seek to do more. This early-stage license deal validates both the scientific and commercial mindset of the team and we are excited there is yet more to come…”
About Tay Therapeutics
Tay Therapeutics is a biotech company that develops new small molecule therapeutics for oncology and severe inherited diseases. Tay is a spin-out from the world leading University of Dundee’s School of Life Sciences and has laboratory facilities in Dundee, Scotland. With the out-licence of its BET inhibitor projects, Tay Therapeutics will now focus on developing a platform to discover and develop a new class of medicine that can cause the body to ignore premature stop codon (PTC) mutations leading to full-length, functional protein. By restoring functional proteins, our drugs seek to address the root cause of these diseases. Tay’s platform is called Tay-Enable.
Tay is supported by its seed investors o2h Ventures, Meltwind, Wren Capital, Scottish Enterprise and the University of Dundee.
About o2h Ventures
The o2h Ventures ‘Human Health’ SEIS and EIS funds make tax-efficient investments in Pre-Seed and Seed stage companies that address human disease: we fund the development of novel therapeutic treatments; we help build new services and tools offerings throughout the biotech ecosystem, and we spur the creation of software & artificial intelligence that will change healthcare.
The o2h team are leaders in the biotech community and have been actively involved as investors, holding various board/industry positions as well as being engaged in grassroots scientific activity for over 20 years. o2h Ventures operates from their proprietary 2.7 acre Mill SciTech Park where they are developing a unique model for incubating small life science companies.
For more information or to invest in the fund, please visit www.o2hventures.com
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