Collaborative investigation to focus on oral bioavailability

A collaboration between Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and discovery platform Nuritas is hoping to find out the effectiveness of oral-based medication compared to drugs delivered via injection.

Scientists from the two groups are working together to discover if drugs taken orally can be sustained long enough in our digestive system so that the active ingredient can effectively relieve pain or fight infection.

The groups will be assessing the question of oral biovailability in naturally occurring molecules, called peptides, from food or food by-products. Dr Nora Khaldi, CSO & founder of Nuritas and professor David Brayden, a senior scientist at SFI’s Beacon Bioeconomy Research Centre believe that the new research partnership has the potential to be a game changer for the biopharma industry and patients.

Professor Brayden will create oral solid dosage forms of natural peptides discovered by Nuritas’ artificial intelligence (AI) platform.

Peptides are the major signalling molecules in humans and as such have numerous health benefitting functions such as anti-inflammation, antimicrobial and blood glucose regulation. To get the most of these bioactive molecules, they must last longer in the body, after swallowing and passing through the intestine and liver, in order to reach the blood stream intact.

“To be able to take food-derived natural peptides and create an oral delivery system with pharmaceutical applications will be a major advance for both the biopharma industry and patients. This is a holy grail of the industry and something they have been working to develop for decades. Such advances have the potential to reduce industry production costs. Patients would also have the convenience of being able to take tablets or capsules, thereby reducing hospital visits, which is likely to improve treatment compliance and outcomes. We would also be advancing the development of our bioeconomy by using food-derived natural peptides”, said professor David Brayden.

Dr Nora Khaldi said: “Although very efficacious, many peptides have low oral bioavailability, so identifying new ways to improve their delivery to the blood stream will allow diseases reliant on injectables, such as diabetes, to be treated with drugs in tablet or capsule form. This in a way helps us to disrupt beyond the discovery of peptides into improved delivery of efficacious oral peptides. We will be doing this through computationally understanding the structural, physical and chemical requirements of bioavailable peptides. This can change the way drugs are discovered as we want our AI system to integrate bioavailability at the very start of the prediction, reducing the risk of failure during later drug development phases.”

“This project is a perfect example of using advanced technology to generate bio-based products of enhanced societal and economic value from our natural resources, which is the core focus of the centre’s work’, said professor Kevin O’Connor, director of Beacon.