UK company Tay Therapeutics has entered into an exclusive license agreement with US biotech VYNE Therapeutics for its oral bromodomain and extra-terminal domain (BET) inhibitor TAY-B2.
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 US by year-end.
Dr Andrew Woodland, CEO of Tay Therapeutics, said: “The second deal with VYNE is the culmination of two 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, added: “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.”
