Active R&D and strong demand for innovative peptide drugs

With the increasing difficulty of small molecule drug development, global biologics research and development is accelerating and exploding. Peptide drugs between biologic drugs and chemical drugs (all peptide drug formulations discussed in this paper) have also become a global R&D hotspot, among which there are many heavyweight drugs like liraglutide and glatiramer with annual sales of several billion dollars.

Compared with the global trend of peptide drug R&D, China is still in the growth stage in the field of peptide drugs, which needs to be innovated in terms of varieties and delivery methods. Leading the trend of new drug R&D Peptide drugs are often between small-molecule chemical drugs and large-molecule protein/antibody drugs, which balance the advantages of small-molecule chemical drugs and large-molecule protein drugs, and have the characteristics of good efficacy, fast effect, high specificity, predictable side effects, low toxicity and predictable metabolic pathway.

The global peptide drug formulation market size grew rapidly from 2007 to 2017, reaching approximately $34.1 billion in 2017, with a 10-year CAGR of 11%. The U.S., U.K., France, Spain, Italy, and Germany are the most dominant markets for peptide drugs, occupying more than 70% of the market share. At present, there are nearly 70 peptide drugs approved for marketing worldwide, involving the treatment of systemic diseases such as gastrointestinal, hematological, cardiovascular, genitourinary, central nervous, respiratory and sensory organs, as well as anti-tumor and immunomodulation, systemic hormones, and anti-infection, among which systemic hormones, anti-tumor and immunomodulators are the most common. With the rapid development of biotechnology and genetic engineering technology, peptide drugs have become one of the important directions of new drug development for many companies. The global peptide drug pipeline is richly distributed, with varieties entering phase III clinical trials in many disease areas, among which the research and development of oncology and metabolism-related drugs are the most active.