Bicycle and CLIPS in biotherapeutics development
Bicycle Therapeutics, a UK biotech based in Cambridge, has obtained a global licence from Pepscan of The Netherlands to use its proprietary constrained peptide chemistry technology. The companies will collaborate on the development of structurally modified peptides that will act as a novel class of therapeutic molecules.
Bicycle Therapeutics, a UK biotech based in Cambridge, has obtained a global licence from Pepscan of The Netherlands to use its proprietary constrained peptide chemistry technology. The companies will collaborate on the development of structurally modified peptides that will act as a novel class of therapeutic molecules.
Pepscan's CLIPS technology allows the creation of constrained peptides covalently linked to an organochemical scaffold. These molecules behave as functional mimics of complex protein domains and hitherto have been used in antibody and vaccine programmes to create superior immunogens in the induction and selection of antibodies against disease relevant protein targets. This is especially valuable in the case of proteins that are inaccessible as recombinant proteins (e.g. GPCRs, ion channels, patented proteins).
Bicycle applies biological selection techniques in combination with CLIPS to identify and optimise chemically constrained cyclic peptides. These peptides combine the best features of biological and small molecular weight drugs, the company says.
"We believe that this partnership will enable Bicycle Therapeutics to generate molecules which are truly differentiated," said John Tite, ceo of Bicycle Therapeutics. "The combination of biology and chemistry will enable us to create and explore new levels of molecular diversity."