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ARTICLE | Emerging Company Profile

Mining for substitutions

How Riptide’s host defense peptides improve upon first-generation technologies

December 30, 2016 1:27 AM UTC

Riptide Bioscience Inc. has mined the sequences and structures of failed first-generation peptide therapeutics to engineer a new class of host defense peptides with amino acid substitutions that could make its candidates more effective in the clinic.

Naturally occurring host defense peptides are produced by the innate immune system to boost response to infections and tamp down inflammation. First-generation attempts to develop these peptides as therapeutics, including the magainin class of molecules from Magainin Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Locilex pexiganan acetate from Dipexium Pharmaceuticals Inc., failed in the clinic for lack of efficacy...