July 30, 2018  HitGen Ltd. is pleased to announce that the company has extended and expanded its agreement with MSD, known as Merck & Co., Inc, Kenilworth NJ., USA into a multi-year research collaboration and license agreement to build and screen novel DNA-encoded libraries (DELs) in order to discover potential unique small molecule assets to be used in drug discovery and development. Through the collaboration, HitGen and MSD scientists will apply HitGen’s advanced technology platform and research capabilities in the design, synthesis, and screening of multiple proprietary DELs for MSD’s drug discovery efforts. In addition, HitGen will interrogate their own DELs, consisting of hundreds of billions of compounds, against a selected number of MSD’s therapeutic targets. Novel lead compounds from the HitGen DELs will be licensed exclusively to MSD for further research and development. MSD will support the research at HitGen.

"We are delighted to announce the expansion and extension of this collaboration with MSD. Our scientists will continue to work closely together to design and build proprietary DELs to support the discovery of a new generation of medicines to address unmet clinical challenges. This collaboration reflects HitGen’s capabilities, expertise, and flexibility to develop business models to meet the needs of our collaboration partners, and provides insight into the success of our initial target-based collaboration" said Dr. Jin Li, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of HitGen.

"This expanded collaboration builds upon the strong relationship we have developed with researchers at HitGen as we apply the DEL technology across our portfolio" said Dr. Emma Parmee, Vice President, Global Discovery Chemistry, MSD.

About HitGen Ltd.

HitGen is an innovation driven life science company with headquarters and main research facilities based in Chengdu, China and with laboratory in USA.  HitGen has established a unique platform for drug discovery research. Our DNA encoded chemical libraries (DELs) contain more than 200 billion novel, diverse, drug-like compounds. These compounds are members of DELs synthesised from many hundreds of distinct chemical scaffolds, designed with tractable chemistry based on proven results for identifying small molecule leads against targets from both known and unprecedented protein classes.  HitGen is collaborating with multiple pharmaceutical, biotech and agrochemical companies, and academic research institutes to discover and develop the therapeutics of the future.

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