Delivering drug cargoes across cell membranes is the major challenge in the development of a revolutionary new class of drugs. Cell Penetrating Peptides (CPPs) can overcome this challenge and provide access to the ‘undruggable genome’ – the highest value drug targets that exist inside cells. Phylogica (ASX:PYC) owns the world’s most structurally diverse peptide library and is using these libraries to identify a new generation of highly efficient CPPs.

Highlights:

1. Phylogica has entered into a Research and Development Collaboration with Ramot, the Business Engagement Center at Tel Aviv University to further develop the research of Professor Dan Peer of Tel Aviv University in Israel.
2. Professor Peer is a leader in the field of Lipid NanoParticle Delivery (LNP) systems
3. The Collaboration will evaluate the complementary of Phylogica’s Cell Penetrating Peptide (CPP) platform with LNPs in the delivery of small interference RNA (siRNA) therapeutics – a major area of commercial interest for Phylogica

Collaboration Agreement details
Delivery of siRNA inside cells is an area of substantial commercial interest to Phylogica’s prospective pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners. siRNA represents a very attractive cargo class for intracellular delivery due to its precision and potency.
One of the challenges with siRNA as a cargo class is its negative charge – leading to both weak intrinsic cell penetrating ability and problematic electrostatic interactions with positively charged delivery vehicles. An attractive proposed methodology for overcoming this challenge is to insulate the negatively charged siRNA cargo from positively charged Cell Penetrating Peptides (CPP) using a Lipid NanoParticle (LNP) coating.

Phylogica is pleased to announce a collaboration with a leading global expert in LNPs – Prof. Dan Peer from the Tel Aviv University in Israel. The Collaboration will aim to evaluate the complementary of utilizing CPPs and LNPs in the delivery of siRNA to tissues outside of the liver.
The Collaboration is consistent with Phylogica’s stated strategy of focusing internal resources on the flagship Anti-Sense Oligonucleotide (ASO) program whilst advancing alternative applications of our CPP platform through collaborative efforts. This Collaboration forms a distinct approach to nucleic acid delivery to our flagship ASO program and the majority of the work will be conducted in Prof. Peer’s laboratory in Tel Aviv accordingly.

Dr. Katrin Hoffmann, Phylogica’s Director of Research commented: “RNAi therapeutics have great potential but delivery beyond the liver remains a key challenge. We are excited to work together with Dan Peer, a leading expert in the systemic delivery of siRNA using targeted
nanocarriers. This collaboration will provide important proof of concept data towards the delivery of siRNA/LNPs using our CPPs to develop more potent and safe RNAi therapeutics”.

 

About Phylogica
Phylogica Limited (ASX: PYC) is a biotech company focused on commercialising its intracellular drug delivery platform and screening its peptide libraries to identify drug cargoes for development against a wide range of disease targets. Phylogica controls access to the world’s most structurally diverse source of peptides which have the ability to act as effective drug delivery agents and drug cargoes, penetrating cell walls to reach previously ‘undruggable’ targets across a range of disease types. Phylogica’s platform of proprietary
cell penetrating peptides has been validated across multiple animal models for the ability to deliver a diverse range of drug cargoes into cells. The company has collaborations with several pharmaceutical companies including Roche, Medimmune, Pfizer, Janssen and
Genentech.