Dr. Andrew Lewis shares key takeaways from the 2025 Controlled Release Society Annual Meeting, highlighting advances in oral peptide delivery and the growing role of AI/ML in drug development.
My summer always starts with the Controlled Release Society Annual meeting, held each year in July…somewhat awkwardly around my partner’s birthday. You may know I have been involved in the CRS for over 20 years now and not only does it keep me abreast of the latest science in drug delivery, but also provides an opportunity to catch up with the many friends and collaborators I have made over the years.
This year’s meeting was one of the best for many years in terms of scientific content. The plenary speakers alone included Professor Bob Langer (MIT), Nobel Laureate Drew Weissman (Uni. Pennsylvania), and my old lab mate Dame Molly Stevens (Uni. of Oxford), each of which were truly inspirational.
As far as Quotient Sciences’ contribution, I organized a preconference workshop on oral peptide delivery together with David Brayden (UCD) and Stephen Buckley (Novo Nordisk). Speakers from Novo Nordisk, BMS, Genentech, Merck, Chugai, J&J, and Protagonist Therapeutics shared their perspectives on oral peptide advancements, with talks on everything from early mechanistic studies through to clinical translation and late-stage clinical development.
We’ve seen a huge uptick in oral peptide programs over the last few years and have supported the clinical translation of approaching twenty, amassing a wealth of experience and knowledge along the way in both the CMC and clinical aspects of what may well be the last frontier in oral delivery. This increased interest is undoubtedly a result of parallel advances in peptide engineering and drug delivery. The majority of peptides and macrocycles we have worked with in recent years have been specifically designed for oral delivery. Whilst there is still a lot to learn, we now know much more about oral peptide biopharmaceutics to be able to support clients better.
One of my colleagues presented on some PBPK modelling we have done on an oral peptide that was able to predict changes in clinical bioavailability with changes in permeation enhancer content, and some of his work in predicting potential DDIs of a GLP1 analogue co-formulated with a permeation enhancer. A summary of the workshop will be published in Frontiers in Drug Delivery—reach out to me if you want to be notified when it's out and we’ll be sure to share a copy.
One of the things that has been striking over the last few years at CRS was the increased number of presentations including some form of computational science. This year was no different, with Ai/ML in particular having both dedicated sessions and seemingly being presented in at least one talk in each session I attended.
At Quotient Sciences, we have worked on several drugs that had been initially discovered using Ai—this goes back quite a few years. I expect this technology will be routinely used as a tool to help pharma and biotechs better manage risk, accelerate development, and improve the understanding and control of drug product manufacturing—amongst other things! In the near future, hope to share with you some of what we have been doing in that space.
I left the CRS conference this year both inspired and excited for the future. Whilst there are undoubtedly many challenges facing scientific research and the pharmaceutical/biotech industry right now, I have lived through enough of these cycles to know that the work we are doing is highly valued by society and science will prevail.
