Stanford’s lysosome protein degradation spinout Lycia emerged with $50m of capital from Versant Ventures to develop a portfolio of drug candidates.

Lycia Therapeutics, a US-based protein degradation drug development spinout of Stanford University, exited stealth on Tuesday with $50m from founding investor Versant Ventures. Lycia Therapeutics has built a drug discovery platform for creating lysosome targeting chimeras (Lytacs) capable of degrading cell-surface proteins ordinarily inaccessible with traditional therapeutic methods, combatting intractable diseases including certain subtypes of cancer. Lytacs consist of an antibody bound to the ligands of peptides known as glycopeptides, in which amino acids have glycan molecules covalently attached. The compounds have been shown to traffic extracellular and secreted proteins to the lysosome for destruction. The funding is expected to enable Lycia to build out its platform and develop a portfolio of candidates through both internal and external research. Lycia hopes to leverage a range of receptors to extend Lytac’s therapeutic impact, while exploring its potential for drug modalities such as gene therapy. The spinout was founded in 2019 from Versant’s biotherapeutics discovery engine, Inception, building on research led by Carolyn Bertozzi, professor of chemistry and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Stanford University. Clare Ozawa, managing director at Versant and a member of the Lycia Therapeutics board of directors, said: “The team at Lycia has begun to translate recent insights on the utility of targeted lysosomal trafficking into a new class of therapeutics. “With this financing, we hope to build on this progress and to generate a broad pipeline of development candidates.”

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