Drug discovery
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Within the framework of the collaboration, hundreds of millions of small molecules will be screened to discover and advance drug candidates against multiple new oncology targets of interest to the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute.
HitGen’s encoded libraries have been designed to contain many hundreds of millions of small molecules with drug-like properties and have been synthesized on many chemically diverse scaffolds in order to provide maximum opportunity for finding drug leads against protein targets from known and novel protein classes.
Under the terms of the agreement the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute will provide HitGen with funding for collaborative research and success-based milestone payments as candidate molecules progress through preclinical testing and into clinical development. Further financial details were not disclosed.
“We are very pleased to initiate our research partnerships by entering into this drug discovery collaboration with the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, a world leading cancer research group.” said Dr Jin Li, CEO of HitGen Ltd. “We are looking forward to successfully tackling challenging targets using this cutting edge technology in collaboration with the innovative scientists at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute.”
“We are very excited by this collaboration; HitGen’s technology offers us a novel way of prosecuting cancer targets derived from Cancer Research UK funded research” said Dr Donald Ogilvie, Head of the Drug Discovery Unit at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute. “We anticipate that this will allow us to tackle targets which have not been amenable to more traditional hit finding methods”. He went on to say that “in the longer term we hope that this collaboration will allow us to deliver real patient benefit to the global cancer community.”
“This important collaboration will allow us to access a library of millions of compounds enabling us to develop new ways to block challenging targets. This agreement will pave the way for new treatments and new options for patients which we hope ultimately will one day save more lives from cancer” said Dr Phil L’Huillier, Director of Business Development at CRT.
Notes to Editors
For further details about HitGen please contact:
HitGen Ltd
Dr Jin Li, Chairman and CEO
Phone: +86 2885 [email protected]
About HitGen
HitGen is a privately owned small molecule lead discovery company founded in 2012. It is founded with significant start up funding from private investors and the High Tech Zone in Chengdu, China. The company has developed a lead generation platform based on parallel synthesis methodology to allow DNA-tagging of hundreds of millions of chemically diverse drug-like small molecule compounds. The efficient screening of these encoded libraries allows the rapid identification of potent drug leads and requires minimal amounts of protein reagents. HitGen partners its technology with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as other drug discovery research organisations.
For more information about HitGen Ltd, please visit the company’s website www.HitGen.com.
About Cancer Research Technology
Cancer Research Technology (CRT) is a specialist commercialisation and development company, which aims to develop new discoveries in cancer research for the benefit of cancer patients. CRT works closely with leading international cancer scientists and their institutes to protect intellectual property arising from their research and to establish links with commercial partners. CRT facilitates the discovery, development and marketing of new cancer therapeutics, vaccines, diagnostics and enabling technologies. CRT is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cancer Research UK, the world's leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research. Further information about CRT can be found at commercial.cancerresearchuk.org.
About Cancer Research UK
- Cancer Research UK is the world’s leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research.
- Cancer Research UK’s pioneering work into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer has helped save millions of lives.
- Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of the progress that has already seen survival in the UK double in the last 40 years.
- Today, 2 in 4 people survive their cancer for at least 10 years. Cancer Research UK’s ambition is to accelerate progress so that by 2034, 3 in 4 people will survive their cancer for at least 10 years.
- Cancer Research UK supports research into all aspects of cancer through the work of over 4,000 scientists, doctors and nurses.
- Together with its partners and supporters, Cancer Research UK's vision is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured.
For further information about Cancer Research UK's work or to find out how to support the charity, please call 0300 123 1022 or visit www.cancerresearchuk.org. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
