Biotherapeutics and Bioanalytical Techniques

Peptide Therapeutics

Peptide and protein therapeutics represent an increasingly significant category of biologics used to treat illnesses such as cancer, autoimmune, neurological, and endocrine disorders. Their high target specificity generally makes them a more effective and safer choice of treatment than small-molecule drugs. Currently, there are more than 200 approved therapeutic proteins and over 100 peptides on the market; this figure accounts for 10% of the pharmaceutical market at a value of $40 billion per year (1, 2). With hundreds of protein and peptide drugs in clinical trials and many more in preclinical development.

      Protein and peptide therapeutics have much higher molecular weights (MWs) than small-molecule drugs, which hinders their absorption through epithelial cells. An effective delivery system is fundamental to enable proteins and peptides to overcome their inherent structural instability, diffuse across physical barriers, and achieve the desired In addition, peptide stapling has shown advantages in increasing a peptide’s stability, cellular penetration, and binding affinity by locking the conformation of the peptide through multiple, synthetic, hydrocarbon backbones.