PEP Therapy is a biotech company developing targeted therapies for the treatment of severe diseases, with an initial focus on cancer.
PEP Therapy – innovative peptides as targeted therapies for oncology
PEP Therapy develops Cell Penetrating and Interfering Peptides (CP&IP) for the intracellular delivery of targeted therapies. These active compounds penetrate cells and block relevant intracellular protein-protein interactions, thus inhibiting specifically key mechanisms of diseases. PEP Therapy aims to become a key player in the world of intracellular targeted therapies. PEP Therapy has exclusive rights for the use of an innovative technology called CP&IP (Cell Penetrating & Interfering Peptides). Two major innovations have been combined to target efficiently and accurately key cellular mechanisms involved in pathologies:
- Optimized CPP (Cell Penetrating Peptides), as a “shuttle” to deliver drugs into the cell, without toxicity, and, above all, with optimized in vivo stability;
- Short Interfering peptides, designed to target specifically relevant protein/protein interactions, thus blocking key mechanisms of diseases, with no effect neither on other functions of the two proteins or other pathways.
The combination of both technologies helped this biotech company to design a unique platform in terms of cell penetration yield, in vivo stability, safety profile and versatility to address different targets and pathologies. PEP-Therapy has a pipeline of CP&IP drug candidates and three products are currently under development. The first one, DPT-PEP1, will start GLP-Toxicity studies shortly. DPT-PEP1 is a novel targeted approach to cancer therapy by specifically blocking Caspase-9/PP2A protein/protein interaction. Thus DPT-PEP1 triggers apoptosis in cancer cells without harm to healthy cells and leaving the other functions of the two proteins and other signaling pathways intact. DPT-PEP1 combines two sequences in a linear 30-amino-acids peptide: DPT, as a penetrating “shuttle” to deliver the active peptide into the cell, and PEP1, interfering “active peptide”, blocking Caspase-9/PP2A interaction. The mechanism of action is based on caspase activation, with no effect on the cell cycle, thus allowing for the use of DPT-PEP1 with chemotherapies. DPT-PEP1 has demonstrated proof of concept in patient cells: DPT-PEP1 induces death on a collection of human tumor cell lines and on B cells of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) without affecting healthy cells (T, NK, monocytes), demonstrating tumor specific activity. Furthermore, in patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models, DPT-PEP1 inhibits tumor growth in human uveal melanoma, breast, ovary and lung primary tumors. Neither toxicity nor immunogenicity has been detected upon single or multiple dose treatments (even at high dose: once a day injection of 100mg/kg, 4 weeks). These results support the initial clinical development of DPT-PEP1 in triple-negative breast, lung and ovary cancers, uveal melanoma (orphan disease) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. DPT-PEP1 may be used alone or in combination with standard chemotherapeutic agents (successfully tested with the four main classes of chemotherapies).
PEP Therapy was founded in January 2014, in collaboration with Inserm, Institut Curie and Pierre & Marie Curie Paris University. PEP Therapy is headquartered in Paris (France). PEP Therapy is affiliated to Genopole bio-cluster and is laureate of the national innovative venture Competition. Management Team is composed by Antoine Prestat, Jean-Loup Romet Lemonne and Jennifer Sengenès. Scientific Team is composed by Didier Decaudin, Fariba Némati and Angelita Rebollo.
More about PEP Therapy: www.pep-therapy.com