Discovery Platform

Venoms as a starting point for drug discovery

Australia's protected continental and marine environment is home to many of the world's most venomous animals. The Great Barrier Reef in particular has an abundance of unique, diverse , venomous marine animals. Due to their long period of geological isolation and the presence of complex marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems.

During evolution, venomous animals have developed a vast array of toxic peptides for the purpose of defence and capturing prey.  The peptides are directed against wide-ranging pharmacological targets.  As such, they are an invaluable source of new drug templates.

Synthetic analogs of venom peptides are strong candidates for rapid drug discovery and development, because their bioactive constituents have been designed under selective pressure and perfected by evolution to have the desirable properties specificity, potentcy and stability.

Evolving therapeutics

The Xenome discovery platform comprises intellectual property related to venom peptides, resources and expertise suited to exploring the evolutionary advantages inherent in venom peptides and translating them into therapeutic candidates. Such candidates have the potential to offer greater safety and efficacy than competitor products, partly because they have the unusual property of altering activity by binding to targets at regions other than their active sites (so called, allosteric modulation).

Xenome's peptide libraries 

Xenome has two novel libraries on which its discovery activities are based - xdiscover™ and xventure™.

xdiscover™

• Synthetic library consisting predominantly of cone snail venom-derived peptides and analogs created by Xenome's peptide chemists
  
• More than 2000 individual peptide structures, 5-30 amino acids, in lengths and containing 1-3 disulfide bonds
  
• Contains hits against a range of targets, including G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and ion channels
• Validated source of leads for analgesic and anti-inflammatory drug candidates

xventure™

• Totally synthetic peptide library under development, based on structures found in venom peptides
• Will contain 5,400 individual peptide structures initially
  
• Core structures are in the small molecule range, being about 700 Da
• Potential templates for the creation of small molecule mimetics
• Potential for development of orally available drugs

The high degree of new chemical diversity in Xenome's libraries provides means to discover best-in-class therapeutic compounds for the treatment of conditions that do not respond to medications.

Click here for further information on Xenome’s venom peptide libraries