Can an Enzyme Crack the GLP-1 Drug Puzzle?

Utah biotech Sethera Therapeutics deploys its PapB enzyme to stabilize therapeutic peptides, boosting GLP-1 drug development

22 Jun 2026

Folding a peptide into the right shape has always been harder than finding the right peptide in the first place. For decades, drug developers relied on chemical methods that are costly, imprecise, and stubbornly difficult to scale. Sethera Therapeutics, a spinout from the University of Utah, believes a bacterial enzyme called PapB can do the job better.

PapB works by acting as a natural catalyst on peptide chains, curling them into stable, ring-like structures through a process called macrocyclization. The resulting molecules hold their shape, a quality that matters greatly for GLP-1 drug candidates targeting obesity and metabolic disease, where both potency and shelf life depend on structural consistency. Karsten Eastman, CEO and co-founder of Sethera, described the platform as something that "acts like a precise molecular stapler, architecting new peptide structures and locking them into stable, drug-like shapes."

The science originated in the laboratory of Vahe Bandarian, now the company's chief scientific officer. NIH grants provided much of the foundational funding. "Basic research matters," Bandarian said. "Utah's translational ecosystem and sustained NIH support made this discovery possible." His framing is a quiet argument for federal science budgets at a moment when those budgets face pressure.

Broader substrate scope means PapB is not confined to a single drug class. For pharmaceutical developers, that versatility is commercially significant. A scalable enzymatic tool that reduces synthesis complexity could shorten the path from molecule to medicine, trimming both cost and time in a field where both are substantial. GLP-1 therapies have generated extraordinary commercial interest since the success of semaglutide; the next competitive frontier is molecular refinement, and that is precisely where Sethera aims to compete.

Whether an enzyme platform alone is sufficient to attract partnership or capital at scale remains to be seen. The peptide space is crowded, and claims of precision are common. Sethera's advantage, if it holds, lies not in novelty but in reproducibility, the capacity to deliver the same stable structure, batch after batch, at a price that makes clinical development viable.