# HAYA Therapeutics

> HAYA Therapeutics is a clinical-stage precision medicines company spun out of Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) in 2019. It develops RNA-guided programmable therapeutics that target long non-coding RNAs in the so-called 'dark genome' - the roughly 98% of human DNA that does not code for proteins - to reprogram disease-driving cell states. Its lead candidate, HTX-001, is an antisense oligonucleotide targeting the cardiac lncRNA Wisper for heart failure, with a broader pipeline spanning fibrosis, metabolic disease and cancer. The company is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, with US laboratory operations in San Diego, and raised a $65M Series A in May 2025.

- **Founded:** 2019
- **Headquarters:** Lausanne, Switzerland
- **Founders:** Samir Ounzain (Co-Founder & CEO), Daniel Blessing (Co-Founder & CTO)
- **Team size:** ~67 employees
- **Products:** HTX-001, Regulatory Genome Platform, Pipeline programs
- **Notable:** Closed a $65M Series A in May 2025 led by Sofinnova Partners and Earlybird Venture Capital, with Eli Lilly participating., Signed a collaboration with Eli Lilly worth up to $1B in milestones for obesity and metabolic targets (September 2024)., Advanced lead lncRNA-targeting candidate HTX-001 toward the clinic for heart failure.

## Products & services

- **HTX-001** — Lead clinical candidate: a first-in-class antisense oligonucleotide targeting the cardiac-specific long non-coding RNA Wisper, developed for heart failure with an initial focus on non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (nHCM).
- **Regulatory Genome Platform** — A discovery engine that integrates multimodal functional genomics with computational and AI tools to map non-coding RNAs that causally drive disease, then design RNA-guided therapeutics to modulate them with cell-type precision.
- **Pipeline programs** — Preclinical RNA-guided programs spanning fibrosis (including pulmonary fibrosis), obesity and metabolic disease, and oncology - all built on the same lncRNA-targeting platform.

## Achievements

- Closed a $65M Series A in May 2025 led by Sofinnova Partners and Earlybird Venture Capital, with Eli Lilly participating.
- Signed a collaboration with Eli Lilly worth up to $1B in milestones for obesity and metabolic targets (September 2024).
- Advanced lead lncRNA-targeting candidate HTX-001 toward the clinic for heart failure.
- Co-founders Samir Ounzain and Daniel Blessing received the Andreas & Thomas Struengmann Award (2024) for visionary scientific entrepreneurship.
- Founder's academic work discovered hundreds of cardiac-enriched lncRNAs including CARMEN, Meteor and Wisper.
- Recognized as a WEF/Top 100 Swiss Startup and through Innosuisse, MassChallenge and Venture Kick programs.

## Latest updates

- **2025-06** — Moved San Diego operations into Lilly Gateway Labs to speed development of its RNA-guided platform.
- **2025-05** — Raised $65M Series A to fund clinical development of HTX-001 in heart failure and expand the regulatory-genome pipeline.
- **2024-09** — Announced collaboration with Eli Lilly to discover regulatory-genome RNA targets for obesity, worth up to $1B in milestones.
- **2022-02** — Closed a $5M seed extension, bringing total seed financing to roughly CHF 18-25M, and opened US lab space at JLABS @ San Diego.

## Links

- Website: https://hayatx.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/haya-therapeutics
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/HAYA_lncRNA
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyIt_bFJMbmxPpBmopfgqpg

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/haya-therapeutics
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-15