Science — Medikine

Our proprietary discovery platform

Our proprietary discovery platform has the capability to discover and optimize, through directed evolution, a multitude of small peptide “parts” that bind to cytokine receptors. These are then combinatorially assembled and engineered to create potential PEPTIKINESᵀᴹ that activate the targeted cytokine receptor. Further engineering of PEPTIKINES results in cytokine mimetics that address specific issues such as the narrow therapeutic window that limits the utility of established and emerging cytokines.

PEPTIKINES have unique advantages over cytokine modification approaches

PEPTIKINES are designed with no reference to cytokine or receptor structure. They are engineered for low immunogenicity, and since they are unrelated in sequence to the natural cytokine, there’s little risk of generating antibodies that neutralize the endogenous cytokine. This was a major differentiating feature of unprecedented discoveries made in the 1990s by Medikine’s founders. Their discovery of novel peptide agonists of the EPO and TPO receptors led to the development of Omontys® and Nplate®, respectively.

A variety of medicinal chemistry and protein engineering approaches can be used to optimize PEPTIKINES for individual receptor subunit binding, agonist potency, and to achieve desired stability, cell or tissue targeting, conditional activation, and pharmacokinetics.

Pipeline

Our proprietary discovery platform

PEPTIKINES have unique advantages over cytokine modification approaches

A variety of medicinal chemistry and protein engineering approaches can be used to optimize PEPTIKINES for individual receptor subunit binding, agonist potency, and to achieve desired stability, cell or tissue targeting, conditional activation, and pharmacokinetics.