HitGen Announces Collaboration with Bridge Biotherapeutics

Stock.adobe.com

HitGen and Bridge Biotherapeutics announced that they are collaborating to improve the discovery process for FIC novel cancer treatments.¹ HitGen, a Chinese drug discovery platform, will provide its DNA-encoded library, which both compaies believe will accelerate the drug discovery process.

In a press release, Bridge Biotherapeutics CEO James Lee said, “By collaborating with HitGen, we will accelerate the discovery of new targeted anticancer drugs." He added, "We will challenge ourselves to develop drugs that can provide anticancer treatment effects even for genetically mutated cancers, which have been difficult to develop until now."

In the same press release, HitGen chairman of the board and CEO Dr. Jin Li added, “We are pleased to collaborate with Bridge Biotherapeutics team in generating novel drug candidates based on the screening platform we possess," and stated, "We will contribute to the acceleration of new anticancer drug discovery based on the expertise of both companies."

This is HitGen’s latest collaboration. In February of this year, the company announced that its fully-owned subsidiary Vernalis had agreed to collaborate to identify new inhibitors for an undisclosed oncology target.² Similarly to the Bridge agreement, Vernalis is providing its platform for the project.

In a press release issued at the time, Vernalis research director James Murray said, “This partnership is built on Vernalis's strong record for innovation in drug discovery to generate clinical candidates. We look forward to working closely with Hox to successfully achieve the goals of this collaboration.”

In the same press release, Hox Therapeutics CEO Nicholas Adams also said, “We are delighted to be working with Vernalis on this project. They have proven expertise in being able to identify inhibitors against the protein target that we're interested in."

Also, in September of last year, HitGen entered into a similar agreement with SGC where it would provide its platform to be used to screen under-represented targets determined by SGC.³

At the time, Li said, “We look forward to working with the research teams at SGC to generate novel starting points for under-studied proteins and to place ML-ready representations of the data into the public domain on an open access basis. As one of HitGen's four core technology platforms, our world-leading DEL platform is an efficient 'engine' to advance drug discovery and has enabled hit identification and lead generation for many innovative discovery programs by our customers and partners. We look forward to delivering useful starting points for targets chosen by SGC.”

In the same press release, SGC’s chief executive Aled Edwards, “I am confident that this partnership has the potential to be transformative. We look forward to providing the ML community with high-quality, well-curated data so they can contribute to our global effort to find drug starting points for all human proteins."

Sources

1. Bridge Biotherapeutics and HitGen Initiate Research Collaboration to Advance Novel Cancer Therapeutics Program. HitGen Inc. August 22, 2024. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bridge-biotherapeutics-and-hitgen-initiate-research-collaboration-to-advance-novel-cancer-therapeutics-program-302228404.html
2. Hox Therapeutics and Vernalis Announce a Drug Discovery Collaboration in Oncology. HitGen Inc. February 20, 2024. Accessed August 23, 2024. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hox-therapeutics-and-vernalis-announce-a-drug-discovery-collaboration-in-oncology-302065769.html
3. SGC and HitGen Announce Research Collaboration Focused on DNA-Encoded Library Based Drug Discovery. HitGen Inc. September 28, 2023. Accessed August 23, 2024. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sgc-and-hitgen-announce-research-collaboration-focused-on-dna-encoded-library-based-drug-discovery-301941339.html