HealZen Therapeutics ( ‘HealZen’) and Zhejiang Hisun Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (‘Hisun’) have announced a strategic partnership agreement to collaborate on the development of new drugs from R&D to commercialization by leveraging their respective technologies, resources, and teams. 

As part of this strategic collaboration, the two companies have signed an agreement to jointly develop a "First-in-Class" protein degradation drug with both parties contributing and sharing equity in the project. Hisun will receive exclusive global right for development and commercialization of the target product, while HealZen will receive research milestone payments and sales revenue upon successful commercialization.

DaTProD® is a proprietary protein degradation drug discovery platform based on the world's first DaELF tool library. It has established a unique bRo5 class drug property principle concept for PROTACs and accumulated deep technical expertise in POI-Ligand, E3-Ligand, and Linker modules using DDT, ternary complexes, and druggable properties prediction as technical support. The team has established a unique ELF library through a dimension reduction approach involving multiple characteristic ELF sub-libraries such as Oral, Long-acting, and Tissue-enriche, reshaping the drug development process for protein degradation drugs.

The collaboration between HealZen and Hisun will effectively leverage the synergistic effects of target biology and targeted protein degradation to accelerate early-stage drug development, treating unmet clinical needs, accelerating product approval, and benefiting more patients.

Dr. Lei Chen, Chief Scientist of Hisun, said that the company has always been committed to developing innovative drugs based on the spectrum of the most common diseases in China, including global drug development for targets which is difficult to accomplish by small molecules. HealZen's unique DaTProD® platform will significantly accelerate the progress to degradate such kind of targets. This collaboration is a start for the teams to work together closely, and we hope the first new PROTAC drug based on a brand new target can benefit patients soon.

Ms. Xinglu Zhou, CEO of HealZen, said that the collaboration between HealZen and Hisun began with a shared vision in the field of innovative drug development, leveraging HealZen's technical prowess in protein degradation and Hisun's extensive experience in innoval drug R&D, clinical development, and commercialization. The two companies are looking forward to achieving clinical translation rapidly.