Orally Bioavailable Peptides and/or Peptide Therapeutics for Modulating Intracellular Targets

A top five pharmaceutical company with a history of successful academic collaborations, wishes to identify novel methods that allow for the discovery or design of orally bioavailable peptides and/or peptides that can access intracellular targets through passive permeation, endocytosis or via transporters.

Approaches of Interest

• Peptides designed to be intrinsically permeable/orally bioavailable through rational design (e.g., cyclisation, incorporation of non-natural amino acids, etc), next generation conjugation or other innovative approaches
• Design of cell permeable/orally bioavailable peptides inspired by evolutionarily optimised 3D peptide scaffolds derived from natural sources (e.g., lasso peptides)
• For augmented delivery approaches such as conjugation, plug & play approaches are preferred. If re-optimisation of the peptide payload is necessary, then design-make-test (DMT) capabilities for re-optimisation at reasonable throughput must be demonstrated
• Methods for generation of libraries of cell permeable/orally bioavailable peptides
• Novel in vitro assays for prediction of oral bioavailability/intracellular targeting with proven translation to in vivo models are also of interest

Out of Scope

• The use of well-known cell‑penetrating peptides (CPPs) unless significant innovation is demonstrated
• Drug delivery systems/formulation strategies 

Stage of Development

• Opportunities from basic research phase to late preclinical stage are within scope
• For orally bioavailable peptides, in vivo oral bioavailability (of >5% in rat/dog) is required
• For intracellular targeting reliant on endosomal uptake pathways, demonstration of endosomal escape and cytosolic delivery is required
• In silico design of peptides must be accompanied with DMT capabilities at reasonable throughput

Submission Information

Submissions should contain 200-300 word briefs along with the following optional (but highly encouraged) submission form, highlighting any relevant data and supplementary information e.g., relevant publications and patents. In submitting to this campaign, you confirm that your submission contains only non-confidential information. 

Opportunity for Collaboration

Our client is open to a range of collaboration opportunities, with the most appropriate outcome being decided on a case-by-case basis. Example outcomes include licensing, project/PhD funding and research collaborations.