Sharjah's CE-Ventures joins $60 million round for UK Alzheimer's startup

Summary

• CE-Ventures invested in UK biotech Oyster Therapeutics as part of a $60 million Series A round.
• Oyster develops oral, brain-penetrant protein degraders targeting tau, the protein behind Alzheimer's disease.
• The deal extends Sharjah's life sciences bet into neuroscience and targeted protein degradation.

The latest

A $60 million Series A financing for UK pharmaceutical startup Oyster Therapeutics now includes Sharjah money, after CE-Ventures said it had joined the round. The corporate venture arm of Crescent Enterprises said the capital will push Oyster's lead programme, an oral drug designed to cross into the brain and break down the tau protein, towards clinical development. Oyster was previously known as Kesmalea Therapeutics.

Details

• The investor: CE-Ventures is the Sharjah-based corporate venture capital platform of Crescent Enterprises, investing across sectors including life sciences. The announcement did not disclose the size of its contribution, nor the names of the other investors in what Oyster's chief executive described as a wider syndicate.
• The science: Oyster is building what it calls next-generation targeted protein degraders — drugs designed to eliminate disease-causing proteins rather than merely block them. Its initial focus is tau-driven neurodegenerative diseases, with Alzheimer's named as the headline indication.
• The target: Abnormal accumulation of the tau protein defines a group of neurodegenerative disorders known as tauopathies, Alzheimer's among them. Oyster's lead candidate is an oral, brain-penetrant degrader aimed directly at tau, a combination of properties that has proven difficult in the field.
• The platform: Behind the lead candidate sits Oyster's proprietary SELFTAC platform. Damir Illich, VP for Life Sciences at CE-Ventures, said it aims to combine the power of bifunctional degraders with properties supporting brain penetration and oral delivery, which he framed as a key challenge in targeted protein degradation.
• Company view: Rob Johnson, Chief Executive Officer of Oyster Therapeutics, said the financing enables the company to accelerate its lead tau degrader towards the clinic while advancing the broader platform, which he said could "unlock a new generation of medicines for diseases of the central nervous system."
• Investor rationale: Tushar Singhvi, Deputy CEO and Head of Investments at Crescent Enterprises, said CE-Ventures is backing differentiated technologies addressing significant unmet medical need, and that Oyster pairs a proprietary platform with a clear therapeutic focus in a field where approaches targeting underlying disease biology are urgently needed.
• Portfolio fit: CE-Ventures said its existing life sciences holdings span drug discovery, genetic medicine and targeted therapeutics. Oyster adds neuroscience and targeted protein degradation to that mix, broadening the therapeutic technologies represented across the portfolio.
• Stage of development: The lead programme is still pre-clinical, described as moving towards clinical development rather than already in trials. CE-Ventures did not set out a timeline for when the tau degrader would enter human studies, or what milestones the Series A proceeds are expected to fund.

Background

Tau-targeting has become one of the most contested fronts in Alzheimer's research, alongside amyloid-focused drugs. Protein degradation, which removes a target protein outright, is newer than conventional inhibition and has largely been applied outside the brain because of delivery difficulties.

Between the lines

The pitch here is as much about delivery as biology. Both CE-Ventures executives stressed oral dosing and brain penetration rather than the tau target itself, which is already widely pursued — an implicit argument that the differentiation lies in getting a degrader into the brain at all. For Sharjah, the investment is also a portfolio move: it fills a neuroscience gap that drug discovery and genetic medicine holdings did not cover.

What's next

Watch for Oyster to name a clinical start date for its lead tau degrader, disclose preclinical data on brain penetration, or confirm the remaining members of its Series A syndicate.

Source: Emirates News Agency (WAM)