September 30, 2026
Mini-Protein Therapeutics
Small, modular and conjugable mini-proteins that are easier to develop than peptides,
and more tissue penetration friendly than bulky antibodies.
Antibody and peptide are the two most widely developed molecular modalities for biologic therapeutics. Each has its own advantages and pitfalls.
Antibodies have high specificity and potency; yet their molecular weight of at least 150 kDa are too large for convenient enteral administration (oral, sublingual, buccal and oral inhalation). Almost all antibody therapeutics today relied on the painful parenteral (intravenous, intramuscular, subcutaneous and intradermal) administration. Furthermore, antibodies are too large to infiltrate deeply to diseased tissues, resulting in subpar efficacy and high systemic toxicity, especially in the treatment of solid tumors.
Peptides are small biologics. With the molecular weight of 1-10 kDa (typical definition), peptides can be made for enteral administration with proper formulation development, and can penetrate into tissue interior. Yet they have to endure repeated cycles of design, synthesis and testing to achieve high potency, a task of high cost and long discovery and optimization period. Chemical modifications and unnatural amino acids introduced to enhance peptide stability and affinity also increase the cost of CMC development.
The goal of Aries is to develop a novel mini-protein platform to combine the advantages of the two well known biologic modalities. The mini-protein scaffolds are as small as peptides, composed of only natural amino acids, and as versatile as antibody. The platform is suitable for the development of therapeutics treating a variety of human diseases. Discover more >
Conjugatable by design,
to make mini-protein a drug delivery platform
Each of our mini-protein binder unit has an exposed disulfide bond and a few lysine residues for payload conjugation. The payloads can be small molecules, oligonucleotides, radionuclides, or even other peptides. Mini-protein is capable of delivering all known types of payloads to deep diseased tissues due to its small size, and intra-celluarly to all types of target cells when binding to receptors on cell membrane.
Explore the Future of Therapeutics
For almost all disease indications
Our mini-protein platform is particularly fitted to: (1) convenient drug delivery such as oral and inhalable administration routes; (2) specific enrichment in the diseased tissues and not everywhere else so as to achieve elevated efficacy with lowered systemic toxicity; and (3) barrier crossing. We will first demonstrate the versatility and capability of mini-proteins on three indications: inflammatory bowl disease (IBD), celiac disease (CeD) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Discover more >
IBD
A hot pursued indication and pathway
Our first wave of projects targets the TL1A-DR3 pathway, and another clinically validated pathway to achieve simultaneous function mechanisms. Some molecules will be conjugated with small molecule payloads to achieve even deeper clinical response.
CeD
A mostly mild disease with a serious unmet need
A small percentage of the celiac disease (CeD) patients suffer from refractory CeD (RCD), a serious condition that may eventually progress to T-cell lymphoma. We will develop oral mini-protein therapeutics to deliver drugs to where the disease takes place in the most convenient form.
COPD
Huge unmet medical need
COPD affects 10% of the global adult population. It leads to more than 150,000 patient death in the US alone. Current biologics treatments, Dupilizumab on IL-4Ra and Mepolizumab on IL-5, target the Th2 and eosinophil axial of immune response. We will block the stimulation of other immune cell types in addition to Th2 to achieve a broader immune cell suppression, hopefully to achieve broader response among COPD patients, and eventually reducing the rate of fatalities.