Follicum announces that significant progress has been made in the company’s development of new drug treatments for diabetes and other diseases.

Within the framework of a preclinical research project, the interaction between one of Follicum’s tissue-repairing peptide families and a specific receptor has been characterized in detail. This will help accelerate continued optimization work aimed at advancing the company’s preclinical projects to the clinical phase and increases their attractiveness among potential commercial partners, states the company in a press release. Follicum’s most advanced drug candidate, FOL-005, is in clinical phase 2 for the treatment of hair loss.

Facilitate the continued development of peptide-based drugs

For over a year, the company together with Lund University and SARomics Biostructures has been conducting a research project aiming at studying the binding of the peptides to specific receptors on the cell membrane. The project has received research grants from Vinnova and part of the work has been carried out at the MAX IV laboratory in Lund.

Recent studies conducted with advanced X-ray crystallography have contributed to an increased knowledge of how one of Follicum’s tissue-repairing peptide families interacts at the atomic level with a particular receptor. X-Ray images with extremely high resolution (0.15 nanometers) show that the peptides bind to a specific part of the receptor that is considered to play an important role in repairing and protecting organ tissue in a variety of medical conditions. These positive findings facilitate the company’s continued development of peptide-based drugs.

“Our research collaboration has resulted in an even better understanding of how one of our therapeutic peptide families affects important receptors on cells involved in tissue repair. This facilitates continued  preclinical work, not least within our diabetes project, and increases the opportunities to establish commercial cooperation with global pharmaceutical companies as we move into the more resource-intensive development phases,” says CEO Jan Alenfall.

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