Might be ready for another leg to new highs, page-2

Yes, the list of “target customers” in the AGM presentation was interesting.

Notably, a number of these pharma have already established collaborations with Japanese peptide discovery firm, Peptidream, in the last couple of years.

MSD Merck entered into a peptide discovery collaboration with Peptidream in May 2015 which included the option of in-licensing Peptidream’s Peptide Discovery Platform System (PDPS) technology at a later date.

Asahi Kasei signed to a multi-target discovery and development collaboration with Peptidream in March 2016.

Genentech, subsidiary of Roche, licensed Peptidream’s PDPS technology in July 2016.

In April this year, Janssen (J & J) entered into a multi-target discovery and optimization collaboration with Peptidream.

Then there was the recently announced broad collaboration (including  peptide drug conjugates) established between Bayer and Peptidream, which I posted about on 21 Nov.

Those “target customers” listed in the presentation that don’t seem to have current collaborations with Peptidream are Phoremost, BioMarin, Astellas and Taisho.

Phoremost doesn’t need explanation.

BioMarin is an interesting inclusion. BioMarin sought FDA and EMA approval for an oligonucleotide therapy for DMD (drisapersen) around the same time Sarepta was seeking approval for its own oligonucleotide therapy, eteplirsen, for the same disease. Eteplirsen ultimately got the nod but BioMarin had no success with drisapersen. Drisapersen failed to demonstrate increased levels of dystrophin in muscle tissue, as required. BioMarin’s problem was that at the higher doses needed for greater efficacy, adverse events made the drug unsafe. After the knockbacks from the FDA and EMA, BioMarin said in mid-2016 that it planned to invest in research of next generation oligonucleotides with the goal of making a safe and effective treatment for DMD. This was around the same time that Phylogica announced enhanced delivery of antisense morpholino oligonucleotides in an in vitro DMD model, using FPPs. I note the current FPP 01 validation matrix is showing in vivo validation of FPP oligonucleotide intracellular delivery in heart, muscle, diaphragm and liver tissue.

That leaves the Japanese pharmas, Astellas and Taisho.

Taisho I was previously unfamiliar with. Their R&D is focused on the priority areas of infectious diseases, orthopaedic disorders, CNS diseases, and metabolic disorders and they state that they are actively working to in-license promising drug candidates from companies worldwide.

From research I did on Astellas last year (re POH) - it has a market cap of US$28.5 bn and annual revenue of US$12 bn, over 17,000 global employees, and researches, develops, manufactures, and promotes its prescription drugs through subsidiaries in the US, Europe, and Asia.

Astellas' franchise areas are urology, immunology, dermatology, cardiology and infectious disease. Priority areas for R&D are infectious diseases, diabetes, GI diseases, oncology, and CNS diseases.