Preclinical Drug Development Testing for Peptide-Drug Conjugate (PDC)

Peptide-Drug Conjugates (PDCs) are composed of a cytotoxic payload, a homing peptide, and a linker between the peptide and the cytotoxic payload. After antibody-drug conjugates, they are the next generation of targeted therapeutic drugs with enhanced cellular permeability and improved drug selectivity. They pose a great opportunity to target cancer, metabolic diseases, and more. While the potential is significant, development challenges – like poor stability, inferior targeting and potential payload toxicity – can slow the preclinical and clinical development process. WuXi AppTec Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) Service Department has established a robust DMPK research program to develop PDCs. This program has been built with our collective expertise of in vitro ADME, in vivo pharmacokinetics, bioanalysis and metabolite identification coupled with extensive research strategy, data interpretation and crossdepartment cooperation to significantly reduce time and costs.