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PeptiDream Invests in Liberty Blue
“The Liberty Blue system is unquestionably the best peptide synthesizer available today and represents the major workhorse for PeptiDream (12 systems). It is highly recommended to any company looking to synthesize peptides chemically, specifically those containing nonstandard amino acids.”
Dr. Patrick C. Reid
President and Director
PeptiDream Inc.
CEM recently had the opportunity to ask a few questions of Dr. Patrick C. Reid from PeptiDream Inc. Dr. Reid is the Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), Managing Director, and a member of the Board of Directors at PeptiDream Inc., a publically traded (TSE Mothers; JP4587) Tokyo based Biopharmaceutical Company developing peptide-based therapeutics. At PeptiDream, Dr. Reid directs all R&D programs, both internal and external, and also directs all international business development aspects of PeptiDream. Prior to the formation of PeptiDream in 2006, Dr. Reid was an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, and also in the Department of Molecular Biology and Medicine at the University of Tokyo and has published research spanning a variety of research fields, including atherosclerosis, inflammation, metabolism, neurological disease, and cancer research. Ph.D., Biochemistry, Dartmouth Medical School: Graduate Business Training, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College.
Question: Could you provide a background of PeptiDream Inc.?
Dr. Reid: PeptiDream Inc. is a public (Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers 4587) biopharmaceutical company founded in 2006 employing our proprietary Peptide Discovery Platform System (PDPS) , a state-of-the-art highly versatile peptide generation and selection platform which enables the production of highly diverse (trillions) non-standard peptide libraries with high efficiency, for the discovery and development of best-in-class and first-in-class peptide-based therapeutics. In the past five years, PeptiDream has established funded discovery collaborations with many leading pharmaceutical companies, such as Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Mitsubishi Tanabe, Daiichi Sankyo, as well as a strategic collaboration with Ipsen, all of which are active and ongoing. In addition, PeptiDream has transferred its PDPS discovery platform for broad use to Bristol-Myers-Squibb and Novartis. PeptiDream aspires to be a world leader in the discovery and development of novel highly functional peptide therapeutics to address unmet medical needs and improve the quality of life of patients worldwide. For further information please visit www.peptidream.com
Question: What research goals do you hope to accomplish (short or long term)?
Dr. Reid: PeptiDream hopes to become the leader in the discovery of constrained peptide therapeutics, and continue to drive the discovery and development of these peptides into the clinical setting, both within collaboration programs and PeptiDream’s own internal discovery programs.
Question: How does improving peptide synthesis help you?
Dr. Reid: As PeptiDream’s PDPS platform has been established as one of the best hit finding platforms available today, the variety of constrained peptide hits that can be identified, many of which consist of multiple nonstandard amino acids, has steadily increased. While the majority of the early hit identification and screening work can be done using PeptiDream’s in vitro peptide expression technology, ultimately chemical synthesis is required to further develop and characterize the leads. Thus the ability to chemically synthesize any peptide identified is critical to their potential development.
Question: How has the Liberty Blue™ Peptide Synthesizer and its HE-SPPS methods been useful for your research to date?
Dr. Reid: There are a variety of peptide synthesizers commercially available, however, while most have no problems synthesizing standard linear peptide sequences, most have proven far less robust at synthesizing nonstandard peptides with sufficient yield and free of truncated products. The Liberty Blue system resolves both of these issues for us, allowing us to synthesize any of our candidate peptides with superior coupling efficiency and higher end product yields. The added benefit is that the Liberty Blue’s superior synthesis quality makes subsequent purification far easier.
Question: Do you think the Liberty Blue could be useful for others?
Dr. Reid: The Liberty Blue system is unquestionably the best peptide synthesizer available today and represents the major workhorse for PeptiDream (12 systems). It is highly recommended to any company looking to synthesize peptides chemically, specifically those containing nonstandard amino acids.