Mastering and Accelerating Peptide Conjugates: Unveiling Success Strategies
Yvonne Angell
Executive Director, Discovery Chemistry Project Managment, WuXi TIDES
Peptide conjugates are emerging as novel therapeutics to address a range of indications. We present a series of case studies highlighting our successful strategies for accelerating and supporting early hit discovery programs through to candidate selection, development and manufacturing. The case studies cover peptide drug conjugates (PDCs), peptide-oligonucleotide conjugates (POCs), peptide-radionuclide conjugates (PRCs) as well as bispecific peptides. They demonstrate the seamless collaboration between the solid-phase, liquid-phase, and analytical WuXi TIDES chemistry teams to shorten discovery, development, and manufacturing timelines. The presentation also showcases our expertise to support rapid peptide hit discovery, unnatural amino acids (UAAs) synthesis, and linker synthesis for many types of conjugates. Our parallel approach to advance discovery, development and manufacturing requires integration and close communication between multiple teams led by a dedicated project manager, which underscores the effectiveness of WuXi TIDES’ end-to-end solutions for supporting and accelerating drug discovery and development programs, ultimately improving health outcomes.
I am currently Executive Director of TIDES Discovery Chemistry Project Management at WuXi AppTec, where I lead a team to support and accelerate therapeutic programs from discovery into development. I have previously initiated, led and advanced research teams and programs at Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Affymax, Ipsen, ChemPartner, and GenEdit. My primary expertise lies in hit discovery, synthesis, lead optimization and early development of therapeutic peptides, oligonucleotides, proteins and conjugates. In addition, I have designed and optimized novel polymers to enable non-viral, non-lipid nanoparticle delivery for tissue targeting of genetic therapies. I have advanced many drug discovery programs into development. I am active in the fields of Peptide and Oligonucleotide Therapeutics, and currently serve as President of the Boulder Peptide Foundation, a non-profit organization for advancement of Peptide Therapeutics. I’m also co-founder of the TIDEtalks scientific seminar series. In addition, I play an active role on the advisory boards for several prominent conferences in the oligonucleotide and peptide therapeutic fields. I received my PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison under the supervision of Professor Daniel H. Rich, and carried out postdoctoral research as an NIH fellow at the University of Minnesota with Professor George Barany.