Relay Therapeutics

Relay Therapeutics (Relay) is a biotechnology company engaged in developing precision medicine evaluating the movement of proteins (protein motion) with the help of AI and a supercomputer-powered platform. The company’s initial focus is on precision oncology, but it believes its platform will have applications in other areas of precision medicine such as genetic diseases. Its platform, Dynamo, uses a custom-built supercomputer engineered by David E. Shaw, one of the company’s co-founders. Dynamo can be mainly used in target identification, lead generation, and lead optimization.

As of March 2024, Relay had six drug candidates in its pipeline. Three of its drug candidates were in the early stage of the drug development process for treating solid tumors. These include 1) RLY-4008, which is a selective inhibitor of fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 (FGFR2), 2) RLY-2608, which is an allosteric, pan-mutant, and isoform-selective PI3Kα inhibitor, and 3) RLY-5836, a selective PI3Kα inhibitor. In addition to these, Relay also has more than five programs at the discovery stage across precision oncology and genetic diseases.

Key customers and partnerships

In September 2022, Relay partnered with Foundation Medicine to develop a companion diagnostic (CDx) using the FoundationOne CDx next-generation sequencing panel for its RLY-4008 drug program. In December 2020, the company entered a license agreement with Genentech (a member of the Roche Group) for the commercialization and development of RLY-1971, a potent inhibitor of SHP2.

Funding and financials

Relay went public in July 2020, raising USD 425 million, one of biotech’s largest IPOs of 2020. In January 2024, Relay secured a private investment of USD 30 million from Nextech in return for 2.5 million shares sold at a price of USD 12.00 per share. The proceeds were allocated to expand the development of RLY-2608 and to cover working capital and other corporate needs.

For FY2023 , the company reported a revenue of USD 25.5 million (USD 1.4 million in FY2022) generated through its license agreement with Genentech. However, its net losses increased by 17.7% YoY to USD 342 million.