Vernalis Research, a fully owned subsidiary of Chinese firm HitGen Inc., and US-based Unison Medicines Inc. have announced a research collaboration on an undisclosed bacterial target.

Under the terms of the agreement, Vernalis will use its expertise in drug discovery to design small molecules against this particularly challenging target, which has long been considered to be undruggable.

Unison will finance all activities at Vernalis and Vernalis will be entitled to receive downstream milestones and royalties should the compounds from the collaboration progress further into development and commercialization. As part of the agreement, Vernalis has also invested in Unison's first round of financing.

Doug Witt, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Unison, said: "The investment in this project by Vernalis and others demonstrates the opportunity we see in tackling the Anti-Microbial Resistance problem with highly innovative approaches." 

Dr Jin Li, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of HitGen Inc., commented: "Since Vernalis became part of HitGen at the end of 2020, the research teams from Vernalis and HitGen Chengdu have been working closely to advance the synergistic opportunities of the DEL and FBDD/SBDD technology platforms."