HitGen and Morphic Therapeutic extend drug discovery research collaboration to identify small molecule leads against targets

HitGen Inc. announced today that HitGen and Morphic Therapeutic have extended their drug discovery research collaboration to identify small molecule leads against targets specified by Morphic. HitGen’s industry-leading DNA-encoded library (DEL) technology platform includes over 400 billion encoded syntheses of small molecules with drug-like properties, synthesized on chemically-diverse scaffolds. The collaboration is an extension of a previous agreement which identified active lead compounds that were exclusively licensed to Morphic.

Under the terms of the extended agreement, HitGen will use its platform technology, based on the design, synthesis and interrogation by selection of DELs to discover ligands for targets of interest to Morphic. Morphic will pay an assignment fee to HitGen in exchange for exclusive development and commercialization rights to compounds that achieve the criteria of the collaboration.