Searching for the next peptide "king of medicine"! The Bay Area peptide drug development new opportunity salon gathers momentum for vigorous development

The biopharmaceutical industry is an important strategic industry of the "14+7" industrial cluster in Nanshan District. In recent years, with the development and maturity of peptide synthesis technology, peptide drugs have become one of the hot spots in drug research and development. They have broad development prospects due to their wide indications, high safety and significant efficacy. This year, the GLP-1 series of products in the peptide field has become a dark horse in the market and has attracted much attention. With the popularity of semaglutide and telpotide, the peptide field has ushered in unprecedented development opportunities. The success of these two products has not only promoted the vigorous development of the upstream and downstream industrial chains, but also injected strong vitality into the entire peptide industry chain.

Shenzhen has a solid foundation for peptide research, wide applications, and a prosperous ecology, making it a treasure land for development. As the core gathering area of Shenzhen's biopharmaceuticals, Nanshan District has become a new highland for Shenzhen's biopharmaceutical industry, and excellent biopharmaceutical companies have emerged and led the development of the industry.

With the booming development of peptide drugs, who will be the next generation of "drug king"?

How to adapt to the ever-evolving peptide industry?

How to use new technologies and new platforms to develop peptide drugs?

What are the research hotspots and trends of peptide drugs?

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On the afternoon of August 24, the Biomedical Innovation Ecosystem Salon was held, jointly sponsored by the Shenzhen Tsinghua University Research Institute and the Nanshan District Biomedical Industry Chain Party Committee and hosted by Shenzhen Lihe Biotechnology Co., Ltd. Representatives from universities, research institutes, medical institutions, biomedical companies and other fields were invited to discuss the hot spots, challenges and opportunities of peptide drug research and development from multiple angles, promote the construction of the whole process innovation ecosystem, promote the integration of the innovation chain and the industrial chain, and build the Nanshan District Biomedical Industry Innovation Ecosystem.

The Shenzhen Tsinghua University Research Institute is committed to building a scientific and technological innovation incubation system with deep integration of industry, academia and research, bringing together the most cutting-edge and leading scientists, entrepreneurs, financial institutions and representatives from all sectors of the industry in the field of biomedicine. The Nanshan District Biomedical Industry Chain Party Committee links various functional departments in the district, bringing together policy resources and various enterprise-related service resources. The two parties jointly held a salon to build a communication and exchange platform in order to promote the integration of upstream, midstream and downstream enterprises in the biomedical industry chain. The event attracted representatives from institutions and companies such as the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen Hospital of Southern Medical University, China Resources Learning and Innovation Center, Zhongkexinjin, Redlin, PeptideSheng Bio, Keshengjingpeptide, Jianyuan Pharmaceutical, and Carbon Cloud Intelligent Peptide to gather together to share and discuss the theme of "New Opportunities for the Development of Peptide Drugs in the Bay Area".

Zhongkexinjin is committed to creating the world's first in class peptide drug research and development. At present, the company's core product is Metabolitin (MTL), which inhibits the absorption of lipids in the small intestine through the new pathway MTL-GPRC6A-Neurotensin and regulates blood sugar through the new pathway MTL-GPRC6A-GLP-1. It is a new peptide drug for the treatment of NASH and obesity. As the founder of Zhongkexinjin and an expert at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ren Peigen was invited to return to China in 2012. He keenly realized that the obesity problem in China and even the world has become very serious, and the market is in urgent need of drugs that can solve obesity. Based on his more than 20 years of research, he discovered a new peptide drug that can be used to treat non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and obesity, bringing more health possibilities to patients suffering from metabolic diseases. In the research of Zhongke Xinjin, Metabolitin has a very gratifying point. One is that it is effective when taken orally directly, and the other is that it does not have the gastrointestinal side effects commonly found in GLP-1R agonists. This is likely to be an advantage of Metabolitin in weight loss in the future.

"Keshengjingpeptide's business is focused on the pain points of the peptide industry, so that the company can form its own differentiated highlights." Zhou Li, deputy director of the Protein and Peptide Drug Application Engineering Technology Center of the Advanced Research Institute of USTC and general manager of Hefei Keshengjingpeptide Biotechnology Co., Ltd., said. "Focusing on drug discovery with peptides as the core, Keshengjingpeptide has built a unique cyclic peptide library with a billion-level library capacity and multiple new backbone structures based on phage display technology; using the company's independent intellectual property rights peptide-DNA conjugate synthesis technology, it has built a DNA-encoded chemical combination peptide library, and further used the core structure design and computer-aided design-based technologies to modify and optimize the screened peptide molecules, and improve the stability, binding affinity and specificity of peptides from the perspective of drugability. In the future, we will strive to achieve unlimited industrial innovation possibilities from '1' to 'N' in the peptide field and global business layout, and promote the advancement of the peptide industry."

Shenzhen Peptide Sheng Biotechnology Co., Ltd. aims to build a large-scale innovative peptide entity library, accelerate the development of innovative peptide drugs, integrate peptide structural diversity and sequence diversity, build the world's largest innovative peptide entity library and high-end peptide drug discovery platform, and provide CRO services to help the development of innovative peptide drugs. "We hope to lead the company to continue to move forward in the field of innovative peptide drug research and development, build a trillion-level multi-structure innovative peptide library, and break through the bottleneck of peptide drug discovery." Professor Wang Zhuyin, chairman and chief scientist of Peptide Sheng Biology, has more than 30 years of experience in peptide molecular biology research and more than 40 invention patents related to peptides. He is committed to studying complex structure peptides and building a highly active 3D structure peptide library. At the scene, he used the most professional research to popularize the inseparable relationship between peptides and life sciences, and said that the company is currently committed to researching Yuluo peptides with higher activity, better transdermal performance, longer action time and safer to meet the various needs of the medical beauty market.

Huang Hua, chief scientist of Shenzhen Readline Biotechnology Co., Ltd., took "Peptide Biology-Exploring Peptide Applications and Production Methods from Natural Inspiration" as the theme, saying that the company takes synthetic biotechnology as the core, and produces "life molecules" with amino acids, sugars, and nucleotides as monomers through artificial intelligence, green chemistry, genetic engineering, enzyme engineering, cell engineering, fermentation engineering, laboratory automation, quality research and other cross-disciplinary disciplines, such as glutathione, NMN, ergothioneine, blue copper peptide, HMO, etc. The products cover six major fields: functional skin care, biomedicine, nutrition and health, animal health, green agriculture, and biomaterials. At present, Readline Bio has built a technical platform and R&D team covering the entire process of enzyme function mining, rational design, precise transformation, high-throughput screening, efficient expression, process development and large-scale production, which can increase the conversion rate of substrates to more than 98% and reduce the direct cost of products by more than 50%.

The atmosphere of the on-site exchange session was warm. The delegates expressed their opinions and spoke freely based on the actual development. With the purpose of promoting the high-quality development of peptide drugs in the Bay Area, they shared their common difficulties, successful experiences and suggestions in academic research, industrial development and investment. Experts answered questions face to face and had in-depth exchanges on the development of peptide drugs.

In the closed-door seminar, the guests discussed the AI screening of peptides, the development prospects and technical paths of oral peptide drugs, and the commercialization of peptide CRO services.

"Shenzhen has the environment and foundation for researching peptide drugs, and has also produced well-known companies in the field of peptide drugs. This is rare in other places and is Shenzhen's advantage in continuing to develop peptide drugs." Tian Changlin, professor of USTC, vice president of the Clinical Research Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and chairman of the China Peptide Conference, said that the study of the in vivo stability of peptides is crucial. Peptide drugs are widely used in gene/drug delivery and disease targeted therapy. The quality control level of peptide drugs is close to that of small molecule chemical drugs, such as achieving a breakthrough in the blood-brain barrier. If there is a drug that can break through the blood-brain barrier and achieve efficient, targeted and safe treatment, it will be a very meaningful and major technological breakthrough.

The relevant person in charge of the High-tech Zone Party Committee and the Nanshan District Enterprise Service Center said that Nanshan District has a good environment, good conditions, concentrated resources and good ecology for the biomedical industry. We welcome enterprises, entrepreneurs and scientists from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and even the national biomedical industry to invest and start businesses in Nanshan to achieve common development and mutual benefit. The Nanshan District Biomedical Industry Chain Party Committee and the Nanshan District Enterprise Service Center will do their best to provide service guarantees, continue to provide more accurate and convenient services to enterprises, support biomedical enterprises to become bigger, stronger and better in Nanshan, and jointly create a new chapter in the development of the biomedical industry. Afterwards, the person in charge introduced the relevant enterprise services and promoted the "iNanshan Enterprise Service Comprehensive Platform", demonstrated the iNanshan platform login method on site, and invited enterprises to experience the service.

Build a platform for enterprises in the park to promote industrial exchanges and cooperation, and introduce financial "live water" to help enterprises alleviate difficulties... Focusing on the bottleneck problems of "industry chain, talent chain, and innovation chain", the Party Committee of the Biomedicine Industry Chain in Nanshan District fully utilizes its advantages, and leads the high-quality development of biomedicine enterprises on the chain with pragmatic measures, expands, strengthens and optimizes the innovation chain of the biomedicine industry, and jointly draws a "new blueprint" for the biomedicine field in Nanshan District.