Polyphor

Founded in 1996, Polyphor is a company in Basel developing drugs only slightly larger than small molecule drugs and their focus is on the disruption of protein-protein interactions. These kinds of interactions are more difficult to disrupt because of the shape of the interaction. Usually, to disrupt an enzyme, you need a small molecule that can slip into the active site. However, protein-protein interactions are typically bigger and may require a larger drug to disrupt. Protein therapeutics such as DARPins and antibodies are good at targeting protein-protein interactions, but their larger size has a cost. It may be difficult to design a drug that can enter cells, cross the blood-brain barrier, or can be taken orally.

Polyphor participates in partnerships with companies to develop their small therapeutics against the clients chosen targets. The most recent annoucement has been a partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim (who recently shut down virology research in Montreal Canada).

Polyphor also develops their own compounds against drug targets and have several in clinical trials, with the most advanced in phase II. They are also clearly moving forward with clinical trails since they have a job posting for a clinical development project manager.

Polyphor has two technologies, MacroFinder and PEMfinder. MacroFinder is a synthetic system to develop libraries of rings, sounds like combinatorial chemistry to me. PEMfiner is based on PEMs, developed by Prof. J. A. Robinson at the University of Zurich (yes, Zurich has not only federal ETH but also their own university). PEMs are cyclic peptides with specific short structural motifs (such as a hairpin turn), and it appears that Prof. Robinson has developed the Pseudomonas aeruginosa inhibitor that is currently in clinical trials at Polyphor. The peptide portion of PEMs can first be developed using phage display, and then the peptide sequence transfered to their synthesis platform. I guess at that point the PEMs are cyclized (and are not cyclized during phage display).