About
aTyr’s mission is to translate novel biological pathways into innovative therapeutics with improved outcomes for patients. Our focus is on the extracellular functionality and signaling pathways of tRNA synthetases. Built on more than a decade of foundational science in this area, we have built a global intellectual property estate directed to all 20 human tRNA synthetases, with over 300 protein compositions patented. Our lead clinical product candidate, ATYR1923, is a selective modulator of Neuropilin-2 (NRP2) that downregulates both the innate and adaptive immune responses in uncontrolled inflammatory disease states. We are developing ATYR1923 as a potential disease-modifying therapy for patients with severe inflammatory lung diseases with high unmet medical need. This includes interstitial lung diseases (ILDs), a group of rare immune-mediated disorders that cause progressive fibrosis of the lung, and severe respiratory complications caused by COVID-19. We selected pulmonary sarcoidosis as our first ILD indication and recently completed enrollment in a Phase 1b/2a multi-center clinical trial. The study has been designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability, steroid-sparing effect and immunogenicity of multiple doses of ATYR1923 and to evaluate established clinical endpoints and certain biomarkers to assess preliminary clinical activity of ATYR1923. The results of this study will guide future development of ATYR1923 in pulmonary sarcoidosis and other ILDs such as chronic hypersensitivity pneumonitis (CHP) and connective tissue disease related ILD (CTD-ILD). In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted a Phase 2 randomized, double blind, placebo-conrolled clinical trial to evaluate the safety and identify preliminary signs of activity of ATYR1923 in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 related severe respiratory complications. The study has been designed to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of ATYR1923 as compared to placebo through the assessment of key clinical outcome measures. We recently reported positive topline results from this study. Our lead Investigational New Drug (IND) candidate, ATYR2810, is a fully humanized monoclonal antibody that specifically and functionally blocks the interaction between NRP2 and one is primary ligands, VEGF. ATYR2810 is in preclinical development for the potential treatment of certain aggressive solid tumors where NRP2 is implicated. NRP2 is highly expressed on certain tumors and increased NRP2 expression is associated with worse outcomes in many cancers, such as resistance to current therapies, metastasis and overall survival. The role of NRP2 and VEGF signaling in the tumor microenvironment and its importance in the progression of certain aggressive cancers is becoming increasingly validated. We are also advancing our preclinical pipeline of tRNA synthetases and NRP2 targeting antibodies through internal research efforts, industry and academic collaborations. We recently identified new receptor targets for two tRNA synthetases which may have utility in the development of new therapeutics related to immunology, fibrosis and cancer. We are also working closely with other collaborators and academia to further research in these areas.