Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Versant Ventures Launches New Company, Lycia Therapeutics, With $50M

San Diego-based venture investor Versant Ventures has launched a brand new company out of its Inception Discovery Engine incubator in San Diego, saying this morning it has invested $50M in Lycia Therapeutics. According to Versant Ventures, Lycia Therapeutics will use the funding to develop lysosomal targeting chimeras, or LYTACs, as therapeutics for a broad set of currently intractable cell surface targets. Versant said it started Lycia in 2019 within its Inception Labs effort in San Diego, in a collaboration with Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D., professor of chemistry and HHMI investigator at Stanford University. As part of the funding and announcement of the company, Versant said it has named Aetna Wun Trombley as CEO of Lycia Therapeutics, which will be based in San Francisco.