LIFE-CHANGING PURPOSE

Developing revolutionary therapies for genetic diseases with no treatment options available today
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ABOUT US

We are a clinical-stage biotech company with a purpose to discover and develop RNA therapies that change the lives of patients with genetic diseases.

Our RNA delivery platform technology offers the potential for safer and more effective treatment of the underlying cause of many inherited diseases. At PYC, we seek to treat the underlying cause of the genetic disease, not just the symptoms. Our proprietary RNA therapies aim to halt genetic disease progression and – in some cases – potentially reverse it.

We are currently developing a pipeline of novel therapies in clinical and pre-clinical stage programs, which are focused on diseases of the eye, the central nervous system and the kidney.

We recognise the urgent need to develop treatments for genetic diseases, many of which have no current treatment options available. By designing high-affinity carriers for RNA therapeutics that overcome the major limitations of current genetic treatments, we aim to accelerate treatment availability to patients. We are dedicated to developing exceptional, life-changing therapies.

Meet our global team of leading scientists, clinicians and industry professionals.

Our strategic advantage

We are creating RNA therapeutics to change lives with a strategy driven by four critical tenets. This strategy aims to deliver first- and best-in-class therapeutics with a high probability of clinical success – because our patients can’t wait.
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Monogenic disease focus

We develop therapeutics for diseases caused by a single gene (monogenic) mutation. Studies have shown that  new drugs targeting a monogenic disease have a 5x greater probability of success in patient trials.1

An icon of two strands of RNA next to each other. The strand on the left is white and the strand on the right is orange. Both strand are otherwise identical. They are both gently curved vertical lines with short horizontal lines staggered downwards like the rungs of a ladder.

Haploinsufficient disease targets

We target conditions where one of the two genes in the disease-affected cells works normally while the other doesn’t (known as haploinsufficiency). This insufficient gene expression causes the patient to produce an inadequate level of protein for their cells to function correctly, causing disease. Our RNA therapeutics are highly suited to treat haploinsufficient diseases, as they are able to subtly alter the gene expression of the healthy copy of the gene to produce sufficient levels of protein and rescue cell function.

An infographic of three orange and two yellow alternating circles that form a chain. This represents PYC's patented RNA delivery technology. There is a blue curved line attached to the back of the chain. This presents PYC's unique RNA drug.

RNA drug delivery advancements

We have developed a proprietary drug delivery technology that uses non-viral RNA carriers called cell penetrating peptides (CPPs). When one of our CPPs is paired with an RNA therapeutic it provides up to 100x delivery within the target cells than the ‘naked’ RNA therapeutic alone.2 This enables us to provide competitively differentiated drugs to benefit patients.

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3D patient models

We use scientific models derived from disease-affected patient cells to test our RNA therapeutics. This allows us to study the effects of our drug candidates on the target cells that carry the genetic mutation we are seeking to correct – providing a valuable insight into the potential efficacy of our therapeutics prior to dosing patients in clinical trials.

Our core values

We are united by our core values to look forward and solve the current limitations of RNA treatments.
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Purpose-first

Life-changing science is our focus – we start there and everything else follows.

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Curious to learn

We are always looking to learn and find new ideas from each idea and from outside PYC. We are creative and not afraid to try something that might fail, so long as we learn and improve our outcomes in doing so.

 

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Transparent and committed

We are one team, open with each other – the good, the bad and the ugly. We communicate with clarity, concisely and respectfully. We debate choices robustly and once a decision is taken, we commit wholly as one.

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Connected

We take part in defining our priorities and owning our outcomes. We know how our individual work fits together to achieve our common purpose. We invest as much effort in helping others succeed as we do our own work.

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Excellence with urgency

We seek ever higher standards in what we do every day. At the same time, we are sharply focused on driving outcomes and we find ways to move fast as our patients can’t wait.

References

  1. Szustakowski JD, Balasubramanian S, Kvikstad E, et al; UKB-ESC Research Team. Advancing human genetics research and drug discovery through exome sequencing of the UK Biobank. Nat Genet. 2021 Jun;53(7):942-948. doi: 10.1038/s41588-021-00885-0. ↩︎
  2. Woodward EA, Cunningham PT, Fletcher S et al. Enhancement of antisense oligomer cell penetration in retinal layers using a modular cell penetrating peptide platform. Poster session presented at: Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society 2022 annual meeting; 2022; Phoenix, Arizona. ↩︎
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