HitGen Announces Achievement of Milestone from DEL Discovery Alliance with Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ., USA Release Time：2019-04-18

Kenilworth, N.J., U.S.A. CHENGDU, CHINA – April 18, 2019

HitGen Inc., announced today that it has achieved a milestone in its discovery alliance with Merck & Co. Inc., Kenilworth NJ, USA, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada. The milestone was for the identification of candidates meeting pre-defined criteria, representing the 3rd discovery program between the two companies for which HitGen has achieved this milestone. This achievement entitles HitGen to receive an undisclosed payment per the research collaboration agreement between both companies announced March 14, 2017.

“To date we have initiated screening efforts on multiple Merck discovery programs from various therapeutic areas. These programs are at various stages of screening, selection, synthesis and validation and are all progressing. These achievements mark the continued progress and success of the discovery collaboration between the companies spanning a range of discovery programs. We look forward to announcing future milestones as the programs progress.” said Dr. Jin Li, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of HitGen.

About HitGen Inc

HitGen is a rapidly growing biotech company with headquarters and main research facilities based in Chengdu, China and with a subsidiary in the USA. HitGen has established a platform for small molecule drug centred around the design, assembly and interrogation of DNA encoded chemical libraries (DELs). HitGen’s DELs contain nearly 400 billion novel, diverse, drug-like small molecule and macrocyclic compounds. These compounds are members of DELs synthesized from many hundreds of distinct chemical scaffolds, designed with tractable chemistry, and yielding proven results for the discovery of small molecule leads against precedented and unprecedented classes of biological targets. HitGen is collaborating with pharmaceutical, biotech, and chemical companies, foundations and research institutes in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa to discover and develop approaches for novel medicines and agrochemical solutions.

For more information, please visit www.hitgen.comor contact:

Dr. Jin Li, Chairman & CEO, HitGen Inc. Tel: +86 28 85197385 (8001)