Peptides

Peptide Technology
At the heart of Ferring’s work with peptide technology are amino-acids1, the building blocks of life, developed and optimised by nature over billions of years to build proteins, receptors and peptide hormones. Ferring’s peptide technology and know-how combines naturally-occurring, DNA-coded, amino acids with large collections of proprietary synthetic amino acids to “improve on nature” by overcoming the typical limitations of endogenous2 peptides and hormones, primarily pleiotropic3 and short-lived actions.

The resulting “drug-like” molecules retain the key advantages of naturally-occurring peptides and hormones (high potency, high efficacy and high safety), while offering improved pharmacodynamics4 (receptor and function selectivity), pharmacokinetics5 (enzymatic stability6, clearance, half-life and duration of action) and pharmaceutical properties (solubility and stability).

History of peptides at Ferring
Ferring’s founder Dr Frederik Paulsen chose to develop Ferring’s first medicines using peptide hormones. Initially, Ferring produced peptides through extracting them from animal organs and then modifying them using natural hormones7 and/or ligands8.

Ferring developed production techniques that allowed the chemical synthesis9 of peptides, thus removing the need to extract peptides from animal organs. In the 1960s Ferring became one of the first pharmaceutical companies in the world to synthesise oxytocin10 and vasopressin11 thus establishing Ferring as a peptide company.

Ferring then collaborated with various academic and research institutes to adapt vasopressin11 and oxytocin10 in order to improve their pharmacological12 properties. This work led to the development of medicines to treat diabetes insipidus13, enuresis14, bleeding disorders as well as treatments for the prevention of post caesarean haemorrhage and for the management of premature labour. Glossary Entries
1) amino-acids - One of several molecules that join together to form proteins. There are 20 common amino acids found in proteins.
2) endogenous - Produced inside an organism or cell. The opposite is external (exogenous) production.
3) pleiotropic - Having multiple effects or having multiple effects from a single gene. For example, the Marfan gene is pleiotropic with widespread effects and can cause long fingers and toes (arachnodactyly), dislocation of the lens of the eye, and dissecting aneurysm of the aorta.
4) pharmacodynamics - The study of the biochemical and physiological effects of drugs and the mechanisms of drug action and the relationship between drug concentration and effect.
5) pharmacokinetics - Is a branch of pharmacology dedicated to the determination of the fate of substances administered externally to a living organism. In practice, this discipline is applied mainly to drug substances, though in principle it concerns itself with all manner of compounds ingested or otherwise delivered externally to an organism, such as nutrients, metabolites, hormones, toxins, etc. Pharmacokinetics is often divided into several areas including, but not limited to, the extent and rate of absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion.
6) enzymatic stability - The extent to which an enzyme retains its structural conformation or its activity over time.
7) hormones - Hormone: chemical messenger that carries a signal from one cell (or group of cells) to another via the blood.
8) ligands - A molecule that binds to another molecule, used especially to refer to a small molecule that binds specifically to a larger molecule, e.g., an antigen binding to an antibody, a hormone or neurotransmitter binding to a receptor, or a substrate or allosteric effector binding to an enzyme.
9) chemical synthesis - The purposeful execution of chemical reactions in order to get a product, or several products. This happens by physical and chemical manipulations usually involving one or more reactions. In modern laboratory usage, this tends to imply that the process is reproducible, reliable, and established to work in multiple laboratories.
10) oxytocin - A peptide hormone (1007 D) from hypothalamus transported to the posterior lobe of the pituitary. It induces smooth muscle contraction in the uterus and mammary glands and is related to vasopressin.
11) vasopressin - Also known as argipressin or antidiuretic hormone (ADH) and is a hormone found in most mammals, including humans. One of its most important roles is to regulate the body's retention of water, being released when the body is dehydrated; it causes the kidneys to conserve water, but not salt, by concentrating the urine and reducing urine volume. It also raises blood pressure by inducing moderate vasoconstriction.
12) pharmacological - Pertaining to pharmacology, (the medical science that deals with the discovery, chemistry, effects, uses and manufacture of drugs) or to the properties and reactions of drugs.
13) diabetes insipidus - Rare form of diabetes in which the kidney tubules do not reabsorb sufficient water. This can be because (a) either the renal tubules have defective receptors for antidiuretic hormone (ADH, vasopressin) or (b) a class of aquaporin water channel in the collecting duct is defective or (c) there is inadequate ADH production by the pituitary, leading to the excessive production of dilute urine.
14) enuresis - Involuntary discharge of urine after the age at which urinary control should have been achieved, often used alone with specific reference to involuntary discharge of urine occurring during sleep at night (bed wetting or nocturnal enuresis).

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