Oyster Therapeutics raises $60M to attack Alzheimer's protein tau
What's the deal? Oyster Therapeutics, a London biotech formerly known as Kesmalea, has raised $60 million in a Series A-2 round to develop pills that destroy pathogenic forms of tau, a brain protein linked to Alzheimer's disease. The round was led by 4BIO CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, with Eli Lilly among the new investors.
What's the endgame? Oyster is building an oral, brain-penetrant tau degrader, a drug designed to break down disease-associated tau rather than suppress its production. The $60 million is intended to move the candidate toward clinical development.
Why now? Tau approaches are drawing renewed attention. Biogen's Phase 2 diranersen study reported reductions in tau and encouraging clinical signals, though it missed its primary dose-response endpoint — a reminder of how much remains unproven.
What could go wrong? Oyster's candidate is still preclinical, and it has not disclosed a clinical-trial start date. Alzheimer's remains a notoriously difficult target, and targeted protein degradation is a novel modality with limited track record in the brain.
The signal: The round is a substantial bet on a new modality against a hard target, not yet evidence of a treatment breakthrough. Lilly's participation signals large-pharma interest in degraders as a next-generation tool for neurodegeneration.
Read more: endpoints.news
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
