(Sharecast News) - Specialist drug discovery and development company ImmuPharma announced on Tuesday that on 25 February, the peer reviewed research journal Nature Communications published a fundamental scientific publication on the proprietary technology 'Urelix' from its subsidiary Ureka.The AIM-traded firm said Ureka, based at the IECB in Bordeaux, France, was carrying out research into novel peptide molecules to generate drug candidates for many diseases.It said the publication described for the first time the unique properties of 'oligourea foldamers' as a tool to improve the pharmaceutical properties of peptides.Further improvements not yet described were related to more focussed medical indications, ImmuPharma said.One of the first focus areas had been GLP-1 analogues for the treatment of type-2 diabetes and nonalcoholic-steatohepatitis (NASH) as proof-of-concept for Ureka's technology.Further applications of the Urelix technology included protein and protein interactions, notably in cancer, and improvement of marketed efficacious peptides allowing additional long-lasting patent protection, which the board said would pave the way for a life-cycle management franchise.Novel patented technologies were also currently implemented to cover other aspects of the improvement of peptides, including potential oral delivery.The publication was entitled 'peptide-oligourea hybrids analogue of GLP-1 with improved action in vivo', and was authored by a number of researchers working within Ureka, including ImmuPharma's chief scientific officer Dr Robert Zimmer, and Ureka's head of research Dr Sébastien R Goudreau.ImmuPharma explained that peptides had gained enough attention in the last decade that they were now part of the main strategies, with small molecules and biologics, for developing new medicines.Despite substantial progress, the successful development of peptides as drugs still required a number of limitations to be addressed, including short in vivo half-lives and poor membrane permeability."I am very proud of the achievement of the research team in Ureka since it started in 2014, having built a team of skilled people and expanded our collaboration with the CNRS, developing an exciting technology backed by a strong patent portfolio," said ImmuPharma chief scientific officer Dr Robert Zimmer."As such, a pleasing validation of years of research by our scientific team and collaborators, giving us further confidence in the long term potential of our Ureka platform."Dimitri Dimitriou, ImmuPharma's chief executive officer, added that natural peptides played "key roles" in human biological processes and were effective and selective signaling molecules that bound to specific receptors on cells."Using natural peptides as drugs is not so effective because they are quickly broken down."To put it simply, our technology overcomes these challenges and represents an intelligent way to design novel drugs."The global peptide therapeutics market achieved sales of $30bn in 2018."