Global Peptide Therapeutics Pipeline Insight 2015

Peptides are small molecules of varying molecular masses that consist of amino acids joined with the help of peptide bonds (CONH2). One end of the molecule consists of carboxyl (COOH2) group while the other end has amino (NH2) group giving rise to polarity. Biologically, they are very important and found to play an important role in various anabolic and catabolic processes. They are essential component of cell signaling pathways, immune system, hormonal systems, enzymatic systems and others important systems in the body. Owing to same building blocks, sometimes they are confused with the proteins which are more or less biochemically similar in nature. Technically, peptide consists of upto 50 amino acids in the chain while proteins are much longer chains of amino acids.

Researchers have identified several peptides which are necessary part of body systems that could be used for pharmacological purposes during disease incidence. Peptides could be easily designed and modified according to necessity due to which they have high safety and efficacy profile. They are small in size due to which they can easily enter inside the cell and interact with desired molecules. They have low immunotoxicity due to which they have high tolerability and could be administered to patient of all age group. Various routes of delivery could be observed in this category; they could be injected or orally administrated to patients and newer methods like inhalation is presently under investigation. High bioavailability makes them highly potent as they are highly absorbable due to which lesser amount of therapeutics is required.

Use of peptides in several disease indications has been already proved by investigators and several of them are already available in market. Rapid introduction in market has become possible due to development of high yielding SPPS and LPPS methods. Both have same function of peptide synthesis but they differ in biochemistry due to which their commercial utilization...