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Aileron, Roche to Partner on Peptide Drug Delivery

Drug lab testing (Roche)

(Courtesy, Roche)

Aileron Therapeutics in Cambridge, Massachusetts announced today a partnership with the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche to develop and commercialize a new class of drugs called stapled peptide therapeutics. Roche and Aileron will develop drug candidates with this technology for up to five targets in Roche’s fields of expertise: oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism, and central nervous system.

Roche will fund at least $25 million of Aileron’s technology access fees and R&D costs. Aileron can also reap as much as $1.1 billion in payments if it meets agreed discovery, development, regulatory, and commercialization milestones for all five drug candidates. In addition, Aileron will be eligible for royalties from future sales.

Peptides are amino acid compounds found in proteins. Aileron says the stapled peptides it produces — that connect optimized amino acids —  mimic natural biologic structures capturing features of both small molecules and therapeutic proteins. These features result in desirable properties for drugs: cell penetration, pharmacokinetics (absorption, distribution, and metabolism of drugs in the body), binding to large target protein surfaces, and stability in the body.

The company says its stapled peptides, which have been tested in preclinical studies, can help address difficult disease targets, particularly those involving interactions among proteins within cells, previously out of reach of conventional therapeutics.

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