Lycia is a biotechnology company developing novel therapeutics to eliminate disease-causing extracellular proteins. Our platform is designed to produce specific and potent protein degrading therapeutics, called LYTACs (Lysosomal Targeting Chimeras), that bind the target protein and transport it into the cell for degradation by the lysosome, leveraging the cell’s natural waste disposal process.
Targeted protein degradation is being investigated as an approach to address a variety of disease-causing proteins that had been previously considered undruggable, but these therapies have primarily focused on proteins that exist within the cell. This has left a significant gap in developing therapeutics capable of degrading disease-causing proteins that exist on the cell surface or in circulation. Our LYTAC platform allows us to develop therapeutics that we believe can benefit patients’ lives through its novel method of targeting and degrading these disease-driving proteins.
Lycia’s mission is to improve patients’ lives by stopping disease at its source. At the root of many diseases are dysregulated proteins that circulate in blood or are attached to the outside of the cell. Our novel platform addresses this issue and builds on research that revealed a new class of therapeutics – LYTAC degraders.
While our initial focus is on developing therapeutics that target and eliminate the drivers of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, our technology can target many proteins that have been well validated as drivers of disease.
With our novel LYTAC degraders, we believe we can have a life-changing impact on patients who urgently need new options.
We developed the LYTAC platform to create therapeutics that can rapidly and selectively reduce the levels of disease-causing proteins. Our LYTAC therapeutics are modular and can be customized to target and eliminate different pathogenic proteins, including some previously considered undruggable. The versatility of the LYTAC platform opens the door to treating a broad spectrum of diseases.
