Biotech company Vilya lands cash for disease-fighting 'macrocycles'

Vilya Inc., a biotech startup based Seattle and with operations in South San Francisco, California, on Tuesday announced an expanded $71 million Series A round.

David Baker, a University of Washington professor of biochemistry, co-founded the biotech, which launched in 2022 with $50 million in funding. Vilya is focused on macrocycles, ring-like molecules that can alter protein interactions and fight disease.

Vilya CEO Cyrus Harmon said in a news release the money "extends our ability to rapidly advance our designed macrocycles to clinical development candidates.”

According to Vilya, drug discovery has mostly relied on random screening and luck, which only unveils a fraction of the possibilities. The company says its approach is more precise and that it will focus on "previously difficult-to-drug therapeutic targets."

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Vilya doesn't have a pipeline listed on its website. It has two open roles listed, one in human resources and one for a senior scientist. Both roles are listed for the Bay Area.

According to a first-quarter report on Puget Sound-region life science companies from commercial brokerage firm CBRE, Vilya picked up a little more than 6,000 square feet at the Alexandria Center for Science and Technology in Seattle's Eastlake neighborhood earlier this year.

Venture capital firm Arch Venture Partners is also listed as a founder of Vilya, in addition to being an investor. Arch has invested in local biotechs like Sana Biotechnology and Juno Therapeutics, which sold to Celgene for $9 billion in 2018. Vilya's other investors include Nvidia’s venture capital arm NVentures, Menlo Ventures, Madrona Venture Group, Lifeforce Capital and Altitude Life Science Ventures.

Baker is the head of UW's Institute for Protein Design. Harmon, meanwhile, previously founded San Francisco-based Olema Oncology, which focuses on women's cancers.

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