Antiviral stapled peptides

Around 3 years ago, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientist Loren Walensky approached the venture firm Apple Tree Partners (ATP) with an idea. He and his team could use chemically stapled lipopeptides to block the virus SARS-CoV-2, and they believed the same technology could be used for other enveloped viruses ( Nat. Commun. 2024, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44361-1 ). ATP set to work testing that theory and quietly built a company around it. Now that start-up is emerging from stealth. Red Queen Therapeutics launched with $50 million in venture backing, a contract with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and a pipeline led by a drug candidate that has already been tested in humans. Most antivirals work by stopping a virus from replicating. In contrast, the peptide made by Walensky’s team is designed to prevent a virus from infecting a cell at all. As CEO Mark Mitchnick puts it, an enveloped virus