New peptide synthesiser revolutionises drug development cycle times

Peptide-Pilot™ reduces peptide production from weeks to just hours

Cutting-edge Solid Phase Peptide Synthesiser (SPPS) from Vapourtec drastically shortens drug development cycles, reducing production times for target peptides from weeks to under a day compared to conventional batch methods at room temperature.

Unveiled after two years of collaborative efforts with a major global pharmaceutical company, Peptide-Pilot operates efficiently within a synthesis scale ranging from 2.0 mmol to 30.0 mmol. Utilising Vapourtec’s Variable Bed Flow Reactor (VBFR), it consistently delivers high-quality crude peptides on a large scale.

State-of-the-art peptide synthesis software, equipped with a sequence generator facilitating easy programming, including automated side-chain addition, reduces the typical reaction time for a 30-mer peptide at a 20 mmol scale to under 16 hours.

Minimising solvent and reagent usage, the Peptide-Pilot achieves solvent consumption of less than 70 ml per mmol/cycle, even with PEG resins.

Duncan Guthrie, Founder and MD of Vapourtec, highlighted the significance of this innovation, stating: “There’s been a notable surge in the development and utilisation of peptide drugs in recent years. Peptides are gaining prominence as therapeutic agents due to their unique properties, reduced toxicity, versatility, and potential to address a myriad of medical conditions.

“Vapourtec’s technology and instruments have been used for lab scale peptide synthesis for the last 5 years, but our Peptide-Pilot represents a true revolution by dramatically reducing drug development timescales by up to 3 weeks when significant quantities of a target peptide are required.”

Dr Manuel Nuño, a key contributor to the synthesiser's development, described the Peptide-Pilot as a ‘marvel of engineering’ and a ‘game-changer’ in peptide drug development, delivering cycle times that are a fraction of existing batch-based methods.

Designed for fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl protecting group (Fmoc) SPPS with DIC and oxyma activation, the synthesiser offers continuous in-line analytics, encompassing resin solvation and UV absorption data. The predictability of scaling up is emphasized, with a synthesis optimiszed on Vapourtec’s Peptide-Explorer at 0.1 mmol seamlessly transferable to the Peptide-Pilot at a 30 mmol scale without further development.

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