2nd Annual Macrocyclics and Constrained Peptides Drug Discovery

The main excitement over the newer synthetic/non-naturally occurring smaller macrocyclic molecules as drug candidates is their middle ground promise. Like traditional ‘small molecules,’ macrocyclic peptides can be delivered orally and pass through the cell membrane to reach intracellular targets. Yet they have some of the advantages of bigger molecules like biologics such as the ability to better disrupt protein-protein interactions while still allowing for high potency and specificity.

Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s second annual Macrocyclics and Constrained Peptides Drug Discovery meeting will explore this emerging class of molecules (as well as constrained peptides that can be considered a subset of macrocyclic peptides) and the types of cellular targets they are being developed against. Case studies of macrocyclic compounds that originated from different types of libraries will also be presented with a focus on the types of chemical optimizations needed to progress from hits to lead candidates.