Pierre Fabre Laboratories and Vernalis (R&D) Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of HitGen Inc., entered into a long-term partnership to identify preclinical candidates against multiple oncology targets.

Under the terms of the agreement, Vernalis will use its expertise to enable drug discovery against an undisclosed portfolio of targets and use fragment and structure-based methods to identify small molecules that modulate their activity. This research will be combined with the oncology experience of Pierre Fabre Laboratories to identify drug candidates for treatment of a range of cancers for further development and commercialization by Pierre Fabre Laboratories. The research at Vernalis will be funded by Pierre Fabre Laboratories who will also pay research and clinical milestones and royalties on marketed products.

James Murray, research director of Vernalis said, “This strategic partnership is built on the Vernalis track record for innovation and success in enabling drug discovery and identifying clinical candidates for a wide variety of therapeutic targets. We look forward to building this long-term partnership with Pierre Fabre Laboratories, leveraging their deep expertise in cancer biology and clinical development.”

Francesco Hofmann, head of R&D for medical care at Pierre Fabre Laboratories said, “Partnering with Vernalis represents an important milestone for us. Leveraging the expertise of Vernalis in key areas of Structure Based Drug Design to deliver high quality clinical candidates on multiple Oncology targets is a real asset to develop our Small Molecule Drug Discovery pipeline”.