Dr. Ved Srivastava, Chief Scientific Officer at Perpetual Medicines, shares his career in peptide therapeutics. He contributed to drugs like Byetta exenatide , Bydureon, and Symlin pramlintide . In a discussion, he covers the field's evolution and 2026 trends including macrocyclic peptides and AI…
Dr. Ved Srivastava holds the position of Chief Scientific Officer at Perpetual Medicines. This company uses computational AI and machine learning to create next-generation peptide therapeutics. He also co-founded Phoundry Pharmaceuticals and served in senior roles such as Vice President of Chemistry at Aktis Oncology and Intarcia Therapeutics, plus Head of Peptide Chemistry at GlaxoSmithKline and Amylin Pharmaceuticals.
Recently, Dr. Srivastava earned the American Chemical Society-North Carolina’s Distinguished Lectureship Award for significant research contributions to chemical sciences. He has authored many peer-reviewed papers and patents. He also edited six books on peptide-based drug discovery and Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Control CMC .
Early in his career, Dr. Srivastava focused on small molecules for anti-diabetic agents during his PhD. Peptide science was emerging then, especially after Bruce Merrifield won the Nobel Prize in 1984. He saw potential to contribute in this new area and contacted a peptide expert at the Central Drug Research Institute in India.
"I want to work on peptides," he said, despite the expert's surprise. He accepted a salary cut to one-third of his previous pay to switch fields. Later, in the US, he collaborated with Charles Stammer on non-canonical amino acids in peptides.
Professor Stammer connected him with John Stewart, whose book serves as the field's standard reference. Stewart and Merrifield advanced peptide synthesis significantly. Dr. Srivastava continued in peptides, especially with GLP-1 and Amylin developments.
Synthesis was challenging when Dr. Srivastava began. Researchers made Boc amino acids, Fmoc amino acids, and t-butyl esters manually in the 1980s and 1990s. Progress was slow, but innovations followed.
Today, users purchase amino acids, load them into machines, and automate the process. Advanced methods like stapling and cyclization became possible. Perceptions that peptides were unsuitable as drugs due to short length, poor solubility, and manufacturing issues have been overcome.
Rules for stabilization, half-life improvement, and pharmaceutical optimization emerged. Purification advanced, and NMR capabilities grew for peptides. Combinatorial libraries with millions of options, mRNA display, and AI-based discovery now aid progress.
Computational tools allow early elimination of poor candidates before screening. These shifts span technology, therapeutics, and discovery methods.
As former President of the American Peptide Society, Dr. Srivastava assesses the field in 2026. Key drivers include macrocyclic peptides and AI-driven design, which play major roles. A third factor is target.
Peptides referenced: Exenatide, Pramlintide, Amylin, GLP-1.
Vendors referenced: In Peptides.
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