Lipigon Expands Collaboration With HitGen by Selecting Second Target

CHENGDU, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lipigon Pharmaceuticals AB (”Lipigon”), developer of therapeutics for lipid-related diseases, today announced that the company has expanded its agreement with the Shanghai STAR listed company HitGen Inc. (”HitGen”) to include a second novel target. With joint efforts, the aim is to develop a treatment for cardiometabolic disease.

Lipigon and HitGen have been collaborating on developing molecules enhancing lipoprotein lipase (“LPL”) activity since May 2020, with the aim to develop a novel drug for lipid disorders. Now the time is right to expand the collaboration by selecting a second undisclosed target.

Using HitGen’s proprietary DEL screening platform the parties will identify novel small molecules and jointly develop a candidate drug. Lipigon will be responsible for clinical development and out-licensing of commercialization rights of the drug candidates. HitGen is entitled to a starting fee and revenue sharing for any candidate resulting from the collaboration.

“We are deeply impressed by the HitGen team’s professionalism and hard work in the pre-screening activities of target 1 – LPL. We are therefore pleased to expand our collaboration to include a second target,” said Stefan K. Nilsson, CEO and co-founder of Lipigon. “Target 2 is just as exciting as LPL and has a similarly strong genetic and clinical validation. HitGen’s world-leading screening platform will give us a good shot at finding relevant starting points for drug development.”

“HitGen is determined to help biology expert companies, such as Lipigon, finding new small-molecule leads where traditional screening has not been successful. We have a good track record of succeeding with difficult targets and with the input of Lipigon we hope to bring good lead candidates to the table,” said Dr. Jin Li, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of HitGen.

About Lipigon

Lipigon develops novel therapeutics for patients with lipid metabolism disorders. The company is based on over 50 years of lipid research at Umeå University, Sweden. Lipigon's initial focus is on orphan drugs and niche indications, but in the long term, the company will have the opportunity to target broader indications in the area, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Lipigon’s pipeline includes four active projects: the RNA-drug Lipisense, for treatment of hypertriglyceridemia; an RNA-drug for treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome; a gene therapy treatment for the rare disease lipodystrophy, together with Combigene AB (publ); and a small molecule program for treatment of dyslipidemia in collaboration with HitGen (Inc).

The company's share (LPGO) is traded on the Nasdaq First North Growth Market. Certified Adviser is G&W Fondkommission, email: [e-mail], phone: [phone].

About HitGen Inc.

HitGen Inc. is a rapidly developing biotech company headquartered in Chengdu, China, with subsidiaries in Cambridge, UK and Houston, USA. It became a publicly listed company in Shanghai Stock Exchange in April 2020 (ticker code 688222.SH). HitGen has established a drug discovery research platform 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 from 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.