An Unnatural Approach to Undruggable Targets

Some 70 percent of potential therapeutic targets are believed to be beyond the reach of conventional small molecule therapies or biologics. Macrocyclic peptides offer a way to get at elusive targets while providing desirable characteristics of both small molecule drugs and biologics. They offer oral bioavailability, can permeate cells, and engage complex targets with specificity. Unnatural Products is harnessing AI to create synthetic macrocyclic peptides to pursue previously undruggable targets. We spoke to Cameron Pye, CEO and co-founder of Unnatural Products, about how these peptides can target proteins that traditional therapies cannot reach, the engineering process for the company’s synthetic macrocyclic peptides, and their potential to lead to new innovative therapies for a range of conditions from cancer to obesity.