Discovering Biotech Startups: A map for Selling to Alaya Bioscience

We are moving right along with the new branch of the Sponsor Atlas series, which focuses on young pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are in early stages or stealth mode. In the next edition of Sponsor Atlas: Discovering Biotech Startups, we’re looking at Alaya Bioscience Inc., exploring the current affairs and future orientation of this emerging California - based stealth biotech startup. To accomplish this, we will give a business overview of their current operations, summarize their outsourcing needs, map out their development goals and decision-makers, and highlight their current strategies for capturing innovation. If you haven’t already read our other blogs on new biotech startups, be sure to check them out here.   

Alaya Bioscience is a startup biotech company developing novel nanotherapeutics for infectious diseases. The company is headquartered in San Diego, California, with operations both in the U.S. and Shanghai, China.   

Business Overview

Alaya does not have any registered trademarks, but they do have a very simple website with some contact information and a few sentences about their company profile. We believe there’s a good chance that a more developed website will be coming soon. Alaya’s principal place of business is located at 4940 Carroll Canyon Rd. Ste100, San Diego, CA 91942. As noted on the business entity search, Alaya Bioscience was registered in California as a C-Corp with a filing date on 05/26/2015 and has a registered agent address. They also have a location in Shanghai, China. Alaya has an estimated revenue of $1M and approximately 6 employees dispersed between the San Diego and Shanghai locations, but we think these numbers are going to increase very soon. 

There isn’t much information on their business activities, as well as no listed amounts of funding to support their business expenses. Even though Alaya doesn’t have any information on their funding efforts, we do believe they have some capital to play with mainly based on their annual revenue and number of employees, their current research, and even a patent, with more on that below. Overall, we believe they are in an active position to outsource some of their downstream research and development work in the near future.                  

Outsourcing History

Alaya Bioscience doesn’t have a lot of information about their current outsourcing needs, but considering their recent research and development efforts, we think they are in a good position to connect with solution providers and possibly finance some outsourcing work. Alaya has not filed any forms with the SEC apart from the initial company registration, but they do have a few product pipelines for new therapeutic drugs already in development, with more on that below.    

We’re thinking it would be a great time to contact Alaya Bioscience if you’re interested in providing outsourcing services related to nanotechnology-based drug development and any research technologies surrounding it. After scouring the web for more information, it looks like Alaya Bioscience is currently searching for employees that have experience with managing drug substance and drug product activities from preclinical development through clinical supplies to Phase III registration studies, which should be a very good signal to companies that they are seeking outsourcing services.   

If your team has experience with preclinical drug development principles focused on infectious diseases, such as pharmacodynamics/anti-microbial mechanism of actions, PK, PK/PD relationships, toxicology studies in relationship to preclinical in vitro and animal tolerability studies, or familiarity with nano-technology drug formulations, Alaya Bioscience should definitely be on your contact list, and you should be connecting with them for upcoming work in the near future. Any experience in these technologies would be of tremendous benefit to Alaya at this point in time.  

Alaya’s Pipeline and R&D Focus 

Alaya Bioscience is a startup biotech company developing novel nanotherapeutics for the treatment of human diseases. Even though the company was founded in 2015, Alaya has already developed two complementary product pipelines for new therapeutic drugs and new nano-delivery systems that protect drugs from degradation. The company is currently nearing clinical stage to advance its lead product candidate AB-101 towards human clinical trials for the treatment of gastric diseases. [1] 

Alaya has a second location in Shanghai, China, where in 2017 two of their executives registered a patent on their current research and development platform. The patent deals with the development of highly stable non-vesicular nanoparticles and applications thereof in treating microbial infection, which gives them exclusive rights on working with this specific type of therapeutic platform, and could be a very successful endeavor in Alaya’s future. Specifically, the patent talks about developing non-vesicular nanoparticles which have antibacterial activity and are made from a C8-C28 fatty acid or a derivative thereof, a surfactant and an optional lipid, giving them endless combinations of therapeutic delivery systems to research and develop for their product pipelines.    

Decision Making

It has been very difficult to find any information but we do have some brief data regarding the backgrounds of the executive team. Mrs. Yun Tan is one of the inventors of the patent, mentioned above, that Alaya Bioscience is developing for their product platform. She is also the current President for both the U.S. and Shanghai locations. Mr. Gang Wang is another co-inventor of the patent, and has close ties to the development of the technologies associated with Alaya’s product pipeline and early research and development studies. Dr. Xuhui Huang is Professor of Chemistry at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and was previously President of Alaya Bioscience. He still has close ties with Alaya and continues to advise them on their research and development efforts. As Alaya Bioscience furthers their development and product pipelines, we will begin to see more details regarding their executive team’s day-to-day functions and activities.

Innovation

With a decent amount of research and development, continuous scientific progress with a registered patent on file, and deep technical backgrounds from their executives, we believe that Alaya Bioscience will do very well in their early-stage developments and clinical trial studies. Alaya’s innovative approach to integrating nanotechnology in medicine is a very unique and exciting platform that’s yet to be fully developed into the product pipelines of larger pharma companies. There’s a good chance that we will start seeing more of this type of integration in mainstream marketed products in the near future, but Alaya is definitely at the forefront of early research and development in the field. 

One of the innovative features of nanotechnology is its utility in the field of nanomedicine and surrounding technologies. When these small size materials are introduced into biological systems, their extremely small size and their unique nanoscale properties make it possible to use them as delivery vectors and probes for biological diagnostics, imaging and even therapeutics. In fact, when size decreases, the surface area to volume ratio of materials becomes very large, so that a vast suitable surface is available for chemical interactions with biomolecules. This critically implies that nanotechnology is facing a transition into the tangible advancement of human therapeutics. Recently, we have seen the beginning of multiple clinical trials of nanomaterials; both for therapeutics and for medical devices.  [2]  

While it’s been extremely difficult to determine what Alaya Bioscience will have to offer during stealth mode, the website information about their product pipelines and working patent shows promise, so we think they are on track to create some interesting breakthroughs in the industry over the next few years. Be sure to keep Alaya on your contact list and look out for our next edition in this series coming soon.      

How can I find new stealth biotechs?

If you would like a simple solution for keeping an eye on drug sponsor companies, like Alaya Bioscience, without relying on a database and generic lists of leads each week, we at Zymewire are here to help. Reach out today, and stay tuned for the next installment of the Sponsor Atlas: Discovering Biotech Startups. If you enjoy these articles, please feel free to give them a share through the social links below!