| Item 5.02 | Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers. |
On February 27, 2023, the Compensation Committee (the Committee) of the Board of Directors (the Board) of Tyra Biosciences, Inc. (the Company) adopted an annual incentive plan (the Plan) under which the Company’s employees, including the Company’s executive officers listed below, are eligible to receive annual cash bonus payments. The Plan provides for annual cash bonus opportunities and payouts based on the achievement of specific, pre-established corporate performance objectives and, for certain participants, based in part on individual performance. The Committee will establish the corporate performance objectives each year. An employee’s maximum bonus under the Plan may not exceed 150% of his or her target bonus, unless otherwise determined by the Committee (or the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, for non-executive employees).
An employee’s target bonus and the weightings between corporate and individual achievement will be determined by the Committee (or the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, for non-executive employees) for each year during the term of the Plan.
The current target bonus percentages for the Company’s executive officers are as follows: 50% of base salary for Todd Harris, Chief Executive Officer, and 40% of base salary for each of Ronald V. Swanson, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Hiroomi Tada, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer, Alan Fuhrman, Chief Financial Officer, Daniel Bensen, Chief Operating Officer, Robert L. Hudkins, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer, Piyush Patel, Ph.D., Chief Development Officer, and Ali Fawaz, General Counsel and Secretary.
The foregoing description of the Plan does not purport to be complete and is qualified in its entirety by the Plan, a copy of which the Company intends to file with its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ending December 31, 2022.
On March 1, 2023, the Company announced that it is expanding development of TYRA-300 into achondroplasia (ACH) based on positive preclinical results demonstrated in a study performed in collaboration with the Imagine Institute in Paris, France. Achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism, is a skeletal dysplasia in which growth plate cartilage is affected, resulting in decreased growth of the long bones, vertebral bodies and skull base. A specific mutation in FGFR3 causes over 97% of achondroplasia.
In the study, TYRA-300 was evaluated in FGFR3 wild-type and mutant preclinical models to measure increases in growth and bone length, compared to vehicle-treated mice. In an FGFR3 Y367C/+ model, TYRA-300 was administered daily at a 1.2 mg/kg dose for 15 days. TYRA-300 increased body length in mice by 17.6% compared to the vehicle (p<0.0001) and increased the length of the femur (+24.4%), tibia (+38.3%) and L4-L6 (+23.9%) in mice (p<0.0001). The Company anticipates submitting an investigational new drug application (IND) to the FDA to enable a Phase 2 study in pediatric achondroplasia in 2024.
In addition, the Company reported that the FDA cleared its IND to proceed with a Phase 1 clinical study of TYRA-200, an FGFR1/2/3 inhibitor with potency against activating FGFR2 gene alterations and resistance mutations. This trial is expected to dose the first patient in the second half of 2023.
