Toronto & Cambridge, Mass., Nov 25 — Versant Ventures today announced the launch of Dayra Therapeutics, a startup focused on developing oral macrocyclic peptides for a range of serious diseases. The company has secured more than $70 million in committed funding, including a collaboration with Biogen Inc. that will provide $50 million in upfront capital, as well as an equity commitment from Versant.
Dayra emerged from Versant’s Frontier Discovery Engine that spans Toronto and Montreal. Frontier, like the firm’s U.S. and European-based Discovery Engines, houses a team of multi-disciplinary scientists working in state-of-the-art laboratory facilities in Canada to enable the launch of novel biotech companies. During the seed stage, Dayra made significant progress advancing molecules against several high-value targets in the immunology space as well as in other fields.
“The field of macrocycles is at a new inflection point and is starting to deliver meaningful medicines,” said Rami Hannoush, Ph.D., venture partner at Versant and Dayra’s acting CEO. “Dayra has brought together insights and enablement from Versant’s Frontier Discovery Engine, exceptional leadership with deep macrocycle drug development expertise, and this foundational collaboration with Biogen, putting the company in a very strong position.”
Under the partnership with Biogen, which was detailed in a separate announcement, the companies will collaborate to identify, validate and optimize oral macrocycle candidates for high-priority immunological targets. Biogen will advance the molecules through further development and potential commercialization, including manufacturing.
Dayra will receive a $50 million payment, and Biogen has the option to acquire each development candidate for additional upfront and milestone payments per program.
“Biogen is an ideal partner for Dayra, bringing complementary capabilities and insights,” said Roger Palframan, Ph.D., Dayra CSO. “Our talented research team is looking forward to working in close collaboration to deploy our novel approaches to discover and deliver oral macrocycle therapies for immunology.”