Vapourtec has unveiled its Peptide-PilotTM, a unique, ‘game changing’ solid phase peptide synthesiser (SPPS) that reduces the drug development cycle time for significant quantities of target peptides from weeks to less than a day when compared to traditional, room temperature batch methods.
The result of two years of intensive collaboration with a major, global pharmaceutical company, the Peptide-Pilot operates on a synthesis scale from 2.0 mmol to 30.0 mmol and utilises Vapourtec’s Variable Bed Flow Reactor (VBFR) to produce the highest quality crude peptides at large scale.
The typical reaction time for a 30-mer peptide at 20 mmol scale is reduced to under 16 hours using state-of-the-art peptide synthesis software having a sequence generator providing easy programming including the automated addition of side-chains.
The Peptide-Pilot minimises solvent and reagent usage. Solvent usage is typically less than 70 ml per mmol/cycle even when using PEG resins.
Vapourtec founder and MD Duncan Guthrie explained: “There’s been a notable surge in the development and utilisation of peptide drugs in recent years. Peptides are gaining prominence as therapeutic agents due to their unique properties, reduced toxicity, versatility, and potential to address a myriad of medical conditions.
“Vapourtec’s technology and instruments have been used for lab scale peptide synthesis for the last 5 years, but our Peptide-Pilot represents a true revolution by dramatically reducing drug development timescales by up to 3 weeks when significant quantities of a target peptide are required,” added Duncan.
Dr. Manuel Nuño of Vapourtec, who has played a key role in the development of the synthesiser, explained: “The Peptide-Pilot delivers cycle times that are a fraction of existing normal batch-based methods.
“Already described as a ‘marvel of engineering’, this synthesiser is a genuine ‘game changer’ when it comes to peptide drug development,” he added.
Ideal for fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl protecting group (Fmoc) SPPS with DIC and oxyma activation, the synthesiser offers continuous in-line analytics that includes resin solvation and UV absorption data. Scaling up is predictable, a synthesis optimised on Vapourtec’s Peptide-Explorer at 0.1 mmol can be transferred to the Peptide-Pilot at 30 mmol scale without further development.
