Functional food
Phyllome is developing a new category of plant-based functional foods, everyday products enriched with therapeutic peptides grown directly inside the plant. No injections. No pharmaceuticals. Food that helps your health.
Powered by Phyllome AIThe opportunity
The same autonomous growing infrastructure that produces Phyllome's premium leafy greens can be configured to express specific bioactive compounds within edible plants. Cyclotide peptides — small, ultra-stable proteins found naturally in certain plant families — are the target molecule class.
Cyclotides are orally stable, meaning they survive digestion. This makes plant-based oral delivery a realistic pathway for compounds that currently require injection or synthetic manufacturing.
What we growActive development
Three therapeutic applications are in active development, each selected for clinical relevance, unmet patient need, and compatibility with the cyclotide delivery platform.
Developing cyclotide-based analgesic compounds as an alternative to opioid and NSAID-dependent pain management. Targeting chronic and neuropathic pain pathways with orally delivered plant-produced peptides.
Investigating cyclotide candidates that modulate cholesterol absorption and metabolism. The goal is a plant-derived oral therapeutic that complements or reduces dependence on statin-based regimens.
Exploring satiety-signalling and metabolic pathways addressable through cyclotide peptides. Early-stage research into orally delivered plant-based compounds that influence appetite regulation and energy metabolism.
Platform
From discovery in nature to a product on the shelf explore our four-stage pipeline that turns therapeutic peptides into everyday food.
A natural therapeutic peptide is identified in nature or discovered through AI-driven molecular screening, compounds already evolved for potency and oral stability.
e.g. analgesic peptide from cone snail venom
The peptide's RNA sequence is extracted and engineered into a cyclotide scaffold comprising a circular protein framework that protects the active compound through digestion.
e.g. cyclotide-grafted analgesic construct
An edible plant host is guided to express the cyclotide therapeutic, grown under precisely controlled conditions to maximise compound yield.
e.g. chamomile expressing cyclotide analgesic
The plant is harvested at peak expression and processed into a consumer functional food product with controlled, consistent therapeutic dosing.
e.g. pain-relief chamomile teaResearch partnership
Phyllome's therapeutic peptide pipeline is developed in collaboration with the world's leading cyclotide research team, Prof. David Craik's group at the University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB).
Prof. Craik's group pioneered the discovery and characterisation of cyclotide peptides and continues to lead global research into their therapeutic applications. The collaboration brings together IMB's deep expertise in peptide biochemistry with Phyllome's scalable controlled-environment production platform.
The programme is co-funded through an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant, reflecting the national significance of the research and the commercial viability of the platform approach.
Institute for Molecular Bioscience
Contact us today to explore how vertically integrating your fresh produce supplier can improve your bottom line.
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