Phylogica, a leading peptide drug discovery company based in Australia, has developed a world-class drug discovery platform by harnessing the rich biodiversity of nature to discover novel peptide therapeutics. Phylogica has been a research-focused enterprise since its inception in 2001. However, it revamped its business model in 2009 and switched to collaborative strategies.

The company has signed partnerships with Starting with Pfizer, Roche, MedImmune, and more recently Johnson and Johnson, to help the companies in discovering novel drugs. The revamped business model has been a successful strategy for Phylogica and today 75 percent of its business comes from strategic collaborations with pharmaceutical companies.

Excerpts from the interview with Mr Nick Woolf, COO, Phylogica:

What is the spectrum of drug discovery services that Phylogica is offering to pharmaceutical companies? How is it unique from other preclinical services?

Mr Woolf: We have billions of distinct peptides known as Phylomer peptides, which represent a rich source of biologically active drug leads. These natural peptides are based on expressed sequences of protein fragments that are encoded by the genes of evolutionary diverse microbes, and they thus represent a new class of biological therapeutics. Phylogica utilizes these Phylomer peptide libraries and screening methodologies to identify unique peptide drug candidates for its pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners.

The peptide that we provide have exceptional structural stability, specificity and affinity that has the potential to address disease targets that are intractable to small molecules and other protein biologics, including antibodies.