Peptides are the hottest area of new drug development. Medications derived from these "short" naturally occurringproteins – a midpoint between small molecules and large antibodies -- are highly targeted and often much less toxic than other treatments. It's no wonder, then, that peptide-derived drugs have become a $20 billion market, expected to grow to $43 billion by 2024, according to Zion Market Research. Insulin is probably the most famous peptide drug. Newer peptide-derived medicines like Victoza and Byetta also treat diabetes; Zoladex, Lupron and Sandostatin are used to fight cancer.

Israeli artificial intelligence (AI) peptide drug discovery company Pepticom announced today that it has raised $5 million in a Series A financing round from the Chartered Group. The Jerusalem-based company's AI technology streamlines and significantly accelerates the ability of researchers to discover advanced peptide-based drug candidates. Peptides are used in various therapies, and are recognized for being highly selective and efficacious as well as relatively safe. The pharma industry has recently shown an increased interest in peptide research and development, leading to a resurgence of peptide drug candidates. The process of discovering new peptides with lifesaving potential, however, is still costly and time consuming.

The Israeli company announced the closing of its Series A funding at $5m (€4.49m) from the Chartered Group investment firm, which is expected to use the funds to enable further development of artificial intelligence (AI) models that can be used in peptide drug discovery. According to the company, the pharmaceutical industry has recently shown an increased interest in peptide R&D, leading to a resurgence of peptide drug candidates for various indications, since the molecules can be'highly selective and efficacious, as well as relatively safe'. The AI technology developed by Pepticom aims to streamline and accelerate researcher's discovery of peptide-based drug candidates, compared to traditional methods which are'costly and time consuming', the company stated. Discovery is achieved "by searching an enormous set of possible solutions, vastly reducing the risk of failure during development." More specifically, the technology covers a chemical space of 1,030 possible molecular options, which is larger than current screening techniques.