Developing a platform for macrocyclic drugs
Drug discovery company Phylogica (ASX:PYC), in partnership with The University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), has been awarded a Linkage grant to develop a novel platform to generate macrocyclic peptide libraries. The $670,000 grant is one of the largest awarded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) this year.
Macrocycles are an emerging class of therapeutic peptides that have been chemically modified to form circular structures. ‘Cyclised’ peptides have favourable drug-like properties, which allows them to bind more effectively to drug targets and to resist being broken down in the body like normal peptides.
In some cases, macrocyclics can be chemically engineered to enter cells and hit targets inaccessible to conventional drugs. Adding this capability to Phylogica’s proprietary Phylomer peptides — which can bind tightly and specifically to disease-associated target proteins — would enhance the company’s ability to deliver drugs inside cells.
“A key feature of our technology is that it allows for much greater versatility in the choice of amino acids that can be joined in the cyclisation step,” said IMB Chief Investigator Professor Kirill Alexandrov. “This flexibility significantly expands the structural and size diversity of the Phylomer libraries, allowing them to access a broader landscape of druggable targets. It also has potential to improve the scale and efficiency of downstream processing, thereby overcoming a major bottleneck of alternative macrocyclisation platforms.”
Phylogica CEO Dr Richard Hopkins added, “This grant has potential to provide Phylogica with a firm foothold in the macrocyclic peptide space that is dominated by companies such as Peptidream, which is currently valued at over $1 billion. While demand for therapeutic macrocyclic peptides is growing rapidly, platforms capable of generating libraries of macrocyclic drugs are very rare.”
Phylogica (ASX:PYC) shares were trading unchanged at $0.013 as of around 3 pm on Friday.
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