Why PYC Therapeutics boss reckons biotech is on the edge of success after nearly 20 years of life on ASX

Rohan Hockings believes his $600 million WA biotech is edging closer to success after nearly 20 years of life on the Australian Securities Exchange. PYC Therapeutics has evolved from what chief executive Dr Hockings said was effectively a corporate shell to a drug discovery and development company that’s now yielding results. “We’ve been speaking for a long time and it’s always been with the promise of and in the lead up to generating human efficacy data, which is what people care most about in our industry,” Dr Hockings told The West Australian. “The fact that people are starting to see better after having received the drug candidate (for) this blinding eye disease for which there are no treatments, that’s . . . the single most important achievement of PYC for (2024).” The company recently unveiled the results of its phase 1/2 clinical trial in retinitis pigmentosa — a degenerative eye disease considered to be the leading cause of childhood blindness — which showed improved vision in patients using its VP-001 drug. PYC expects to commence a phase 3 trial next year. “When you’re generating human efficacy data, the market and the industry sit up and take note,” Dr Hockings said. “If 2024 wasn’t the tipping point (for the company), 2025 will be.” The biotech — which listed on the ASX in March 2005 — is developing three other RNA-based drugs to treat rare genetic diseases, including a second blinding eye disease and polycystic kidney disease. It is also developing a drug for Phelan-McDermid syndrome, a severe neurodevelopmental disorder that affects development, speech and behaviour. Dr Hockings expects PYC to be revenue-generating by 2028 and could have US Food and Drug Administration for three of its drugs by 2029. PYC is chaired by WA businessman Alan Tribe, who is best known as the former owner of Perth and Adelaide’s Ikea franchises before it was sold to the Swedish furniture giant’s parent company in 2017. Mr Tribe now has about 150 million shares in PYC, valued at about $192m and gives him a 32 per cent stake in the company. PYC shares are trading up almost 40 per cent since January 2024 which Dr Hockings believes is a reflection of the company’s progress. “We set out a roadmap, we told investors what we were going to do and we did it,” Dr Hocking said. “It’s very clear that if we continue to deliver in the way that we have in the past 12-36 months in particular . . . we are on a path to substantial patient impact and consequently value-creation (for shareholders).” And while the company’s market capitalisation — at just under $630m — has gone backwards recently, Dr Hockings is not concerned. “We’ll get there,” he said of PYC’s goal to get to a $1 billion valuation. “I think it’s the propensity of the Australian market to look at the very near-term as opposed to taking a 24-36 month view as to what the company could be. “What’s clear is that this is great science.” Dr Hockings and Mr Tribe were appointed in their current roles in April 2018, when the company was still called Phylogica. “The business model was very, very different . . . the intellectual property was really left behind when (Mr Tribe and I) became involved in the company,” Dr Hockings said. “And we transitioned to . . . (making) drugs for these patients with unmet needs from scratch and we do it at an RNA level, so it’s a precision medicine that is fixing the specific genetic defect. “I think it’s better to think of (PYC) as a new company in its entirety, there’s very, very little common (with Phylogica).” PYC has commenced phase 1 studies for the second rare eye disease — autosomal dominant optic atrophy — and will begin clinical trials for polycystic kidney disease in Perth in early 2025. It will start an investigational new drug-enabling studies in 2025 for the neurodevelopmental disorder.