The notable expansion of peptide therapeutics development in the late
1990s and the 2000s led to an unprecedented number of marketing
approvals in 2012 and has provided a robust pipeline that should deliver
numerous approvals during the remainder of the 2010s. To document the
current status of the pipeline, we collected data for peptide therapeutics in
clinical studies and regulatory review, as well as those recently approved.
In this Foundation review, we provide an overview of the pipeline,
including therapeutic area and molecular targets, with a focus on
glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists. Areas for potential expansion,
for example constrained peptides and peptide–drug conjugates, are
profiled.