Deal potentially worth over $50m in upfront and milestones plus mid-tier single digit royalties
DUNDEE, UK; 2nd May, 2023 – Tay Therapeutics, focused on developing small molecules for oncology and severe inherited diseases, today announced that it has entered into an exclusive license agreement with VYNE Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: VYNE), a US-based biotech focused on developing proprietary, innovative and differentiated therapies in immuno-inflammatory diseases, for its oral BET inhibitor, TAY-B2 (VYN202).
Tay Therapeutics out-licensed its topical pan-BET inhibitor to VYNE for £16m in upfront and milestone payments in 2021. The out-licensing of both of Tay Therapeutics’ BET inhibitor projects will bring potential milestone revenues of over $65m for the first indications along with tiered royalty payments of up to 10% of net annual sales.
TAY-B2 (VYN202) has demonstrated potent anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic effects in multiple
validated preclinical models, leading VYNE to exercise its option to progress TAY-B2 (VYN202) into a Phase I study to treat major immuno-inflammatory conditions with high unmet need. VYNE has initiated IND enabling studies and intends to file an IND in the U.S. by year-end.
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.”
David Domzalski, President and CEO of VYNE stated “We are thrilled to be licensing the oral BET project from Tay. As a result of our productive partnership, we are poised to announce clinical results for the topical BET inhibitor that we in-licensed from Tay about two years ago and look forward to developing an oral BET inhibitor molecule in immuno-inflammatory conditions that we believe, based on pre-clinical results, is potentially best-in-class.”
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 Bromodomain and Extra-Terminal Domain Inhibitors
BET proteins play a key role in regulating gene transcription via epigenetic interactions (“reading”), and recent research has determined a key role for these BET proteins in regulating B cell and T cell activation and subsequent inflammatory processes. As epigenetic readers, BET proteins regulate the recruitment of transcriptional factors that are key to the production of several pro-inflammatory cytokines. BET inhibitors have the potential to treat a range of immuno-inflammatory and fibrotic diseases by blocking pro-inflammatory cytokine transcription with additional potential in myeloproliferative neoplastic disorders.
For more information, please visit www.taytherapeutics.com or contact Tim Sparey Ph.D (Executive Chair) tim@taytherapeutics.com (+44 (0) 7718864561).
About VYNE Therapeutics Inc.
VYNE’s mission is to improve the lives of patients by developing proprietary, innovative, and differentiated therapies for the treatment of immuno-inflammatory conditions. VYNE’s unique and proprietary bromodomain & extra-terminal (BET) domain platform, licensed from Tay Therapeutics, includes VYN201 (locally administered pan-BETi) and VYN202 (orally available selective-BETi).
For more information about VYNE Therapeutics Inc. or its product candidates, visit www.vynetherapeutics.com or contact Tyler Zeronda (CFO, VYNE) at 908-458-9106
Tyler.Zeronda@vynetx.com. VYNE may use its website to comply with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. Therefore, investors should monitor VYNE’s website in addition to following its press releases, filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, public conference calls, and webcasts.