Peptilogics, a biotech company founded in 2013, is betting that the future of medicine lies in peptides—and is making serious inroads to prove it. With over $150 million in venture funding from prominent investors, including Peter Thiel, Founders Fund, and Presight Capital, the company is developing next-gen peptide therapeutics using a proprietary platform that combines deep biological insight with generative AI and supercomputing.
“We start by focusing on the principles that guide biology,” says founder and CEO Jonathan Steckbeck. “If we can learn and understand how systems operate at a fundamental level, we can build algorithms that predict how new molecules will behave—and we can do it with speed.”
Peptides—short chains of amino acids—are already widely used in medicine (think: Ozempic and Zepbound), but Peptilogics believes their full therapeutic potential remains untapped. Offering a balance between the strengths of biologics and small molecules, peptides can be particularly effective at fighting the infections Peptilogics is targeting because they are highly specific with activity against major drug-resistant pathogens and can also penetrate the dense biofilm layers that shield bacteria from most drugs.
Peptilogics is initially focused on prosthetic joint infections (PJI), a serious complication of implanted medical devices. Its lead candidate targets infected joint replacements, where infection often requires multiple surgeries and extended courses of high-dose antibiotics. Despite those extensive measures treatment fails up to 50% of the time, requiring additional and even more aggressive treatment, including surgical removal of the infected joint. The toll is high: a 25% five-year mortality rate—worse than many cancers—and treatment costs that can exceed $150,000 per procedure, with the average patient requiring 2-3 surgeries.Patients undergoing 10 or more surgeries are not uncommon.
“These infections are a terrible problem for patients—and they’re extremely costly for hospitals and insurers,” says Steckbeck. “We saw a massive unmet need and, importantly, a business case that makes sense. Specifically, this is one of the only bacterial diseases where we can overcome the commercial limitations, namely poor reimbursement dynamics, that have made antibiotic development so challenging.”
With FDA clearance to begin a Phase 2/3 registrational trial expected soon, the company is positioning its lead drug as a first-in-class treatment in a U.S. market that sees nearly 1,300,000 hip and knee replacements each year. But that’s just the beginning.
Peptilogics plans to “land and expand”—starting with PJIs and moving into other infection-prone areas. Next up: preventing infections in compound fractures, where infection rates can reach 45%. Because this next application is based on the same drug molecule as its lead candidate, Peptilogics believes it can leverage existing regulatory groundwork to accelerate development.
Steckbeck cites Pittsburgh as instrumental to the company’s founding and early momentum. He moved to the city to pursue a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular genetics and an MBA at the University of Pittsburgh, aiming to identify and spin out a promising technology. That vision became reality with Peptilogics.
“With research and scientific talent from Pitt and CMU, the expertise here is world-class,” Steckbeck says. “And beyond the science, it’s a great place to live and raise a family.”
With its first clinical program nearing a key milestone and a scalable platform aimed at high-need areas, Peptilogics is positioning itself not just as a drug developer—but as a company pushing the boundaries of what peptide therapeutics can achieve
Location
Pittsburgh
Founded
2013
Category
Biotech
