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Company: PeptiMatrix
Location: Nottingham
Founded: 2023
Founders: Dr John Curd (Co-founder & CEO) and Professor Cathy Merry (Co-founder & CSO)
Written by: Ariyana Rayatt
Edited by: Caroline Babisz & Natasha Barrow
Drug development is an expensive, ruthless and timely process. On average a drug takes 10 years to develop and in 2018 it was estimated that, when accounting for the cost of failures and capital, the cost of developing a new drug was $879.3 million. The failure rate is steep, with 90% of drugs being unsuccessful during clinical trials and when considering the failures before clinical stages this percentage climbs further.
Why are there so many failures during clinical trials, if there are preclinical studies? The preclinical trials aim to weed out and screen for the drugs with the highest safety and efficacy. In many cases, these preclinical stages include in vitro studies followed by animal studies. Animal studies are a well-established stage in the drug development process because of their biological similarities to humans. However, the high rate of drug candidates failing in clinical trials highlights that these studies may not be as effective as originally anticipated. This is because they’re unable to replicate native tissue microenvironments accurately. For example, matrigel is derived from mouse sarcoma and the data can’t be reliably extrapolated to human conditions.
These native microenvironments are determined by the extracellular matrix (ECM). The ECM is the scaffold which supports the body’s tissues and orchestrates cell regulation via differentiation, mobility, growth and survival through biochemical cues. These biochemical cues can be signalling molecules or proteins such as growth factors or adhesive proteins.
Replicating the ECM for better solutions has led to the development of 3D in vitro models and organ-on-chip technologies, a market accelerated by the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 which no longer mandates that animal testing is needed for new drug development given the alternatives now available.
One company producing one of these alternatives is PeptiMatrix. PeptiMatrix has a range of products each imitating different human tissues through the choice of peptides within the hydrogel, as well as a bespoke option allowing clients to work with the start-up to create a hydrogel specific to their research. The peptides used in PeptiMatrix’s product enable customisation of properties to mimic tissue-specific ECM including stiffness and solubility, creating an environment for cells to self-organise into 3D structures that recapitulate in vivo structures. With their product, the PeptiMatrix team hope to to replace, reduce and refine the use of animals and animal-derived products, by offering a more reliable, reproducible and ethical way of investigating drug candidates. They aim to do this with their variety of hydrogels, which have been rigorously batch-tested to enable PeptiMatrix to be confident in the consistency of their product and scalability.
PeptiMatrix‘s products have been used for oncology studies, research of stem-cell-derived tissues and drug screening. John explained that their products can be scaled as small as 384 well plate reducing cost and increasing throughput dramatically when compared to animal studies, whilst also providing more reliable results. This is because PeptiMatrix would make the use of animals obsolete, removing their associated costs such as housing, training and licences; and the consistency of the product reduces the time spent reproducing experiments to establish confidence in a result.
PeptiMatrix’s story began in Cathy Merry’s lab, where John completed his PhD on hydrogels and how they can be customised to mimic different human tissues. His research included understanding the batch reproducibility and scaling parameters needed to produce a commercially viable hydrogel matrix, that with peptides could better reflect human tissues, building the foundational work of what would become PeptiMatrix.
Whilst looking at his options post PhD, John realised that he wanted to continue to direct his research, and it became clear that Cathy had always been interested in commercialising the use of hydrogels. Together, they decided to take the step to commercialise their research, starting with John participating in the iCure programme, a UKRI programme dedicated to supporting scientists in commercialising their research. With the support of the programme’s guidance, John and Cathy founded PeptiMatrix, becoming a University of Nottingham spin-out.
John’s successful participation in the iCure programme led to PeptiMatrix’s first year being funded by a UKRI grant. January 2025 also marked the introduction of Ashley Sowerby as the biotechnology company’s angel investor. The PeptiMatrix team hopes to leverage Ashley’s commercial expertise to guide them through the scale-up phase with a long-term goal of making PeptiMatrix global and branching beyond use in academic groups and into the world of pharmaceutical studies. Reach out to john.curd@peptimatrix.com for enquiries.
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