Who We Are

Cydan is a collaborative team of scientists and entrepreneurs experienced in orphan drug development.

Cydan is a collaborative team of scientists and entrepreneurs experienced in orphan drug development.

Cydan is the first orphan drug accelerator dedicated to advancing therapies that improve the lives of patients with rare genetic diseases. We are doing this because there are more than 7,000 rare diseases, with approximately 400 approved treatments. That’s not good enough.

What does it mean to be an orphan drug accelerator?
We are a collaborative team of scientists and entrepreneurs with comprehensive expertise in drug and business development. We conceived Cydan in 2012 and launched the company in 2013, assembling a team of drug hunters with extensive drug discovery, clinical development and business development experience. In early 2015, we launched our first new company - Vtesse - which collaborated with the NIH and launched a registration study to develop a new therapy for the fatal lysosomal storage disease Niemann-Pick Disease Type C (NPC). One year after launching Vtesse, we created Imara to develop IMR-687, a novel treatment for people living with sickle cell disease. In 2019 we launched Tiburio, a clinical stage company developing new treatments for rare endocrine disorders. This is just the beginning. We anticipate launching several more new companies in the coming years, expanding our ability to help develop new therapies for patients living with rare diseases.

Cydan starts with a compelling scientific idea, identifies promising drug candidate from collaborators in academia and industry, and then efficiently advances them through pre-clinical R&D to enable the establishment of independent companies - accelerating new therapies through clinical development to benefit patients.

Cydan’s drug development experience and access to capital is our key advantage. We are financed by leading life sciences investors, New Enterprise Associates, Pfizer Venture Investments, Lundbeckfond Ventures, Longitude Capital and Alexandria Venture Investments.

The Cydan accelerator is based in Technology Square in Cambridge, MA - the global center for the life sciences community, providing access to some of the world’s greatest minds and healthcare companies.