The invention provides a process for amidating a desired peptide comprising cleaving a substrate polypeptide at a X1-cysteine sequence, wherein X1 is the amino acid at the peptide carboxyl-terminus and cysteine is the first amino acid of a palladium cleavage site comprising the sequence cysteine-X2-X3, wherein X2 is any amino acid, X3 is an amino acid selected from the group consisting of cysteine, histidine, or methionine, and wherein the carboxyl-terminus of the peptide is amidated upon cleavage at the X1-cysteine sequence.