With so many drug targets in the body being activated by protein hormones, it makes sense that shorter chain peptides might be good starting points for new drugs. But peptides rarely have the optimal properties required to make a successful drug.
At the recent TIDES conference in Boston, Zealand Pharma’s Head of Pharmaceutical Development, Torsten Malmström, asked what it takes to turn a peptide into a drug, and said that often – though not always – a good starting point can be a native peptide. To make a good drug, it will need to have a good half life, stability, aggregation properties, receptor specificity and in vivo efficacy. If it does not already have these, they will have to be designed in.
As well as efficacy at the desired receptor or receptors, other properties are desirable. Is it suitable for daily or weekly (or longer) dosing regimens? Can it be – or should it be – combined with other drugs? Is it suitable for liquid formulation? Is the side-effect profile acceptable? And, of course, does it have efficacy in a relevant disease model?
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