HitGen Announces Research Collaboration Focused on DNA-Encoded Library Based Drug Discovery

CHENGDU, China, March 17, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Shanghai Stock Exchange listed company (688222.SH) HitGen Inc. (“HitGen”) today announced that it has entered into a research collaboration agreement with Howard Hughes Medical Institute (“HHMI”) and Duke University. The Principal Investigators for HHMI and Duke University who will oversee the collaboration will be Dr. Robert J. Lefkowitz, a James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at the Duke University Medical Center, Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as well as the recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Dr. Howard A. Rockman, an Edward S. Orgain Distinguished Professor of Cardiology and Professor of Medicine and Cell Biology at the Duke University Medical Center. HHMI and Duke University will use HitGen’s OpenDEL^® to perform selections against GPCR targets. OpenDEL^® is an affordable self-service drug discovery DEL platform for start-ups, biotechs, and academic researchers.

“We look forward to working with the Lefkowitz-Rockman team at HHMI and Duke University and believe that the collaboration reinforces the role of HitGen’s platform as a leader in the rapidly developing field of DNA-encoded chemistry,” said Dr. Jin Li, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of HitGen Inc.

HitGen is a world leader in the development of the DEL technology and applications to early-stage small molecule drug discovery. HitGen’s full range of DEL products and the efficiency of the screening process have made it possible for HitGen to enable drug discovery projects for many organizations around the world.

About OpenDEL^®

OpenDEL^® is a self-service DEL product that provides researchers in industry and academia with a direct access to billions of DNA-encoded compounds for their own target selections without the need to disclose target information (https://www.hitgen.com/en/capabilities-details-21.html). Once the purchase order is placed, HitGen will share in-depth DEL data to customers, including building block and DNA tagging information. Owning to the product transparency, there is no downstream financial obligations, if users find any compounds of interest from OpenDEL^®. OpenDEL^® provides affordable DEL resources for start-ups, biotechs, academic researchers, and AI-ML companies.

About HitGen Inc.

HitGen Inc. is a biotech company headquartered in Chengdu, China, with subsidiaries in Cambridge, UK and Houston, USA. HitGen became a publicly listed company in Shanghai Stock Exchange in April 2020 (ticker code 688222.SH) and has established a drug discovery research platform for small molecules and nucleic acid drug centered on the design, synthesis and screening of DNA encoded chemical libraries (DELs), fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) and structure-based drug design (SBDD) technologies. HitGen’s DELs currently contains more than 1 trillion novel, diverse, drug-like small molecules and macrocyclic compounds. These compounds are members of DELs synthesized from many hundreds of distinct chemical scaffolds, designed with tractable chemistry, and have yielded proven results for the discovery of small molecule leads against precedented and unprecedented classes of biological targets.

Through its acquisition of Cambridge UK based Vernalis R&D Ltd, a leader in FBDD/SBDD, HitGen now has a research team of over 500 scientists and offers a full set of research capabilities that entail recombinant protein expression and purification, structural biology, assay development, screening, DEL synthesis, nucleic acid and small molecule chemical synthesis, computational and medicinal chemistry, biochemistry and biophysics, cell biology, in vivo pharmacology, DMPK, CMC, etc., to enable drug discovery research from target gene to IND filing.

HitGen operates a flexible business model, ranging from a single capability-based fee for services (FFS, e.g., protein expression and purification, structural biology, bioinformatics, computational chemistry, medicinal chemistry, nucleic and organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, biophysics, PK, PD, etc.), DEL screening, DEL design, synthesis and characterization, integrated drug discovery projects, risk sharing projects, collaborative ventures to program out-licensing. HitGen has approximately 20 in-house drug discovery programs at different stages of research & development. HitGen is collaborating with pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical companies, foundations and research institutes in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia to enable the discovery and development of novel medicines and agrochemicals.

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GeneOnline