NSF Award
1042676
This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will begin to address some of the current challenges in peptide drug delivery and chemical protein conjugation. Using Redwood Bioscience's patented technology platform, a protein engineering technique, it is possible to insert a non-canonical amino acid containing a unique handle into any protein of interest. This unique handle, an "aldehyde tag", can be specifically elaborated chemically with a synthetic therapeutic peptide, for example. At Redwood Bioscience, this protein engineering technology is used to generate universal protein scaffolds, IgG Fc domains, that are easy to chemically elaborate, result in a homogenous product and can be used as long lasting protein-peptide therapies. Importantly, using this technology it is possible to elaborate the protein scaffolds with multiple tags for small molecule attachment, increasing the potential payload capacity of the carrier scaffold.<br/><br/>The broader/commercial impact of this research is the development of best in class therapeutics with increased payload capacity and the resulting delivery of sufficiently high concentrations of a desired drug. This is a significant and substantial improvement over the current technologies available. Moreover, through ?expanding the chemical space of protein drugs?, Redwood?s technology has application in developing novel hybrid drugs with unique protein-chemical architectures, including multivalent constructs with enhanced payload capacity. The company plans to expand its pipeline of best in class therapeutic compounds, loading Fc scaffold carrier proteins with peptide or small molecule candidates, identified as potential therapeutics currently suffering from poor PK profiles.
