Bicycle Therapeutics Ltd.
Two-wheeled constrained peptides
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
Natural peptides have plenty of drawbacks that have held them back when it comes to pharmaceutical applications: their highly unstable amino acid chains degrade too quickly to produce a therapeutic effect, discovery has been difficult to industrialize, and manufacturing complex and costly. However, emerging technologies for synthetically stabilizing peptide structures may eventually conquer most of natural peptides’ drawbacks as pharmaceuticals. Bicycle Therapeutics Ltd. hopes its two-wheel “constrained” peptides it calls “bicycles” will ride off with the prize for exploiting nature’s medicines.