The pharmaceutical industry is investing heavily in therapies capable of delivering high-potent treatments to diseased cells while limiting damage to healthy tissue. Antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) have already demonstrated the commercial and clinical potential of this approach, particularly in oncology. Increasingly, attention is now turning toward peptide drug conjugates (PDCs), which many companies view as a complementary and potentially more flexible therapeutic platform.
The collaboration reflects a wider industry shift toward specialist partnerships that combine expertise in peptide chemistry, high-potency active pharmaceutical ingredients (HPAPIs), conjugation technologies, and industrial-scale manufacturing.
Under the agreement, Chemi S.p.A. will supply peptides that Indena will conjugate with highly potent payload molecules. Although neither company is currently developing proprietary PDC drugs, both are positioning themselves as strategic development and manufacturing partners for biotech and pharmaceutical companies active in this rapidly evolving field.
Peptide Drug Conjugates are moving beyond niche oncology research
PDCs are hybrid molecules composed of three main components, which are a targeting peptide, a chemical linker, and a therapeutic payload. Their purpose is to deliver highly potent drugs directly to target cells with greater precision than conventional therapies.
The main distinction between PDCs and ADCs lies in the targeting mechanism. ADCs rely on monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), while PDCs use peptides. This difference has important implications for both drug design and manufacturing.
Peptides are significantly smaller than antibodies, which may improve tumour penetration and allow developers to target disease sites that can be difficult for larger antibody-based therapies to access. Peptides can also be easier to produce and scale than biologic antibodies, potentially reducing manufacturing complexity and cost.
Alongside this, researchers are exploring whether peptide-based systems may reduce immunogenicity in some therapeutic settings, lowering the risk of unwanted immune responses.
These characteristics are driving growing interest in the technology. While the PDC sector remains relatively early-stage and precise standalone market figures remain limited, development activity has accelerated considerably in recent years. Merck & Co, PeptiDream, Tandem Therapeutics, , and AnexAPep are all active in peptide-drug conjugate research or related peptide therapeutic platforms.
The success of ADCs is shaping expectations for PDCs
Much of the enthusiasm surrounding PDCs has been influenced by the commercial growth of ADCs. The global ADC market expanded from approximately $1.6bn in 2017 to reach $13.6bn in 2024, according to the GlobalData Epidemiology and Market Size Database, and is projected to continue growing rapidly over the coming decade.
While PDCs remain at an earlier stage of development, many pharmaceutical companies see them as part of the next wave of targeted therapeutics. The rapid expansion of ADCs has demonstrated the commercial appetite for therapies capable of selectively delivering highly potent payloads.
The broader peptide therapeutics sector is also expanding quickly. Analysis by GlobalData suggests the global peptide therapeutics market could reach more than $80bn by 2032, driven by the growth in oncology, obesity, diabetes, and rare disease treatments. Demand for increasingly sophisticated synthetic peptides has also risen sharply in recent years.
Several major commercial agreements underline the scale of industry interest. In 2023, Genentech signed a radiopharmaceutical partnership with PeptiDream reportedly valued at approximately $1bn. Earlier PeptiDream agreements with Merck and Eli Lilly were valued at roughly $2bn and $1bn respectively.
Why specialist partnerships are becoming increasingly important
As targeted therapies become more complex, pharmaceutical companies are relying more heavily on specialist manufacturing and development partnerships.
Developing PDCs requires expertise across multiple disciplines, including peptide synthesis, linker chemistry, payload engineering, analytical validation, containment systems, and GMP manufacturing. Few companies possess all these capabilities internally.
This is where the Indena and Chemi partnership becomes strategically significant. Chemi S.p.A. / Italfarmaco Group contributes expertise in peptide while Indena brings experience in high-potency molecule manufacturing.
The collaboration also reflects wider changes across the CDMO sector. Many biotech companies developing advanced therapeutics increasingly prefer integrated partners capable of supporting projects from early-stage process development through to clinical and commercial manufacturing.
By combining complementary capabilities, partnerships such as this can shorten development timelines. Analytical method development, pilot production, process optimisation, and regulatory preparation can be managed in parallel rather than sequentially. This is an increasingly important advantage as companies compete to accelerate clinical development.
Conjugate therapies: The competitive advantage of manufacturing expertise
Manufacturing complexity has become equally critical to discoveries in advanced therapeutics.
Many conjugate therapies face major scale-up challenges, particularly when highly potent molecules and specialised containment systems are involved. Reliable production of HPAPIs, peptide conjugates, and related compounds require increasingly sophisticated infrastructure and regulatory compliance.
Indena has recently expanded its capabilities in high-potency molecule production, including upgrades at its Milan facility designed to support targeted GMP drug conjugate manufacturing until OEB6 containment..
Chemi S.p.A. / Italfarmaco Group contributes complementary expertise in chemical synthesis, peptide manufacturing, and industrial-scale pharmaceutical production. Together, the partnership aims to provide an integrated platform capable of supporting pharmaceutical clients developing advanced peptide-based therapeutics.
In addition, the partnership reflects broader pharmaceutical supply-chain concerns. Demand is increasing for Western-based manufacturing capacity capable of supporting complex APIs, peptides, and HPAPIs under increasingly stringent regulatory expectations. For many developers, more efficient supply chains, reliable GMP infrastructure, and transparent manufacturing processes are becoming strategic considerations.
Precision medicine trends are creating new opportunities
Interest in peptide-drug conjugates now extends beyond oncology alone. Researchers are exploring peptide-based conjugates for radionuclide therapies, metabolic disease treatments, and other targeted therapeutic applications.
The modular nature of peptide-based systems creates opportunities to combine different targeting peptides with different payloads depending on the disease setting. That flexibility is one reason many pharmaceutical companies view PDCs as strategically important despite the market still being relatively early in its development cycle.
At the same time, the competitive landscape remains highly fragmented. No single company currently dominates the field, and clinical development activity is spread across a broad mix of biotech and pharmaceutical organisations. China is also rapidly expanding its peptide and conjugate-drug pipeline. While Pfizer, Roche/Genentech, Lilly, and Merck continue to advance programmes with greater clinical maturity.
For companies such as Indena and Chemi S.p.A. / Italfarmaco Group, there is a clear opportunity to establish themselves as enabling partners within a market that is primed to expand significantly over the coming decade. The role of the partners may not be as sponsors of branded therapies, but as companies capable of helping drug developers move increasingly complex therapeutics from laboratory concepts into scalable manufacturing and clinical supply.
As peptide science, payload engineering, and conjugation technologies continue to evolve, demand for specialised manufacturing expertise is likely to grow alongside them. The partnership between Indena and Chemi S.p.A. / Italfarmaco Group reflects how much of the pharmaceutical sector is already preparing for this shift.
