A UK company with technology for potentially removing disease-associated proteins from the brain has raised $60 million in Series A financing from a syndicate led by 4BIO Capital and new investor Eli Lilly and Co. Oyster Therapeutics Ltd, formerly known as Kesmalea Therapeutics, has developed a new version of protein degradation, a natural process by which cells in the body breakdown proteins that are damaged or that are no longer needed in order to maintain equilibrium. As therapies, protein degraders are being used by multiple companies to clear defective proteins from cells.
Oyster has designed a new type of degrader for neurodegenerative diseases that it says can cross the blood-brain barrier in the form of two small molecules and then self-assemble inside the brain as a bifunctional molecule. The new molecule would then remove pathological forms of tau, a protein found in both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
Proceeds of the financing will be used to bring the company’s lead product into clinical studies and support the development of its technology platform SELFTAC. The financing also supports a collaboration between Oyster and the tau researcher Dr Catarina Silva at Massachusetts General Hospital in the US.
Oyster was founded in 2020 by the medicinal chemist Harry Finch, a former director of chemistry at GlaxoWellcome (now GSK Plc) and co-inventor of the asthma drug salmeterol (Serevent). The company raised £25 million ($33 million) in an earlier Series A financing in 2022 co-led by Syncona Ltd and Oxford Science Enterprises.
Besides Lilly, the newest Series A financing includes the new investors Actium Group, CE Ventures and TOHO Ventures. The financing was announced on 10 November.
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