HitGen

Dr. Jin Li serves as Founder, Chairman, and CEO, maintaining centralized control over both corporate strategy and capital allocation. As a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Li brings deep technical credibility to decisions about platform investment, partnership terms, and M&A — notably the 2023 acquisition of Vernalis from Ligand Pharmaceuticals. The firm's Shanghai STAR Market listing introduces governance obligations, but Li remains the dominant decision-maker.

HitGen structures partnerships around its DNA-encoded library technology, granting pharma collaborators access to screen over a trillion small molecules against their internal targets. Partnerships — including confirmed names like Pfizer and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company — typically involve upfront technology access fees, milestone payments as programs advance through preclinical and clinical stages, and royalty streams on any commercialized drugs discovered using the platform. This aligns HitGen's economics with partner success without requiring it to fund clinical trials.

HitGen sources partnerships through a combination of its scientific reputation in the DEL field, conference presence, and the trans-Pacific networks of its leadership — notably Dr. Jin Li's BayHelix Group membership, which connects Chinese and Western life science executives. The Cambridge-based Vernalis subsidiary provides additional European business development reach. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation relationship, focused on global health targets, also signals the firm's ability to secure institutional, non-commercial partners alongside its pharma roster.

HitGen acquired Vernalis (R&D) Limited from Ligand Pharmaceuticals in 2023, gaining a Cambridge, UK research center with expertise in fragment-based drug discovery and structure-based drug design. This added a complementary screening modality beyond the core DEL platform and gave HitGen a physical European footprint. The deal expanded the firm's capability to offer integrated hit-to-lead services rather than DEL screening alone, making it a more complete discovery partner for large pharma.

HitGen operates primarily as a platform business, monetizing its DEL library and screening capabilities through partner-funded research collaborations. The firm does not publicly disclose a wholly owned internal pipeline of clinical-stage assets, distinguishing it from traditional biotech companies. However, some partnership structures may include co-development or royalty-sharing terms that give HitGen pipeline-like upside without solo development risk — a hybrid posture between a CRO and a biotech.

HitGen's DEL platform operates at the earliest stages of drug discovery — hit identification and lead optimization — providing chemical starting points for partners to advance through preclinical and clinical development. The technology is modality-agnostic and target-class-agnostic, meaning it can serve programs across oncology, infectious disease, inflammation, and rare disease. Confirmed partners span commercial pharma (Pfizer, Takeda) and global health funders (Gates Foundation), reflecting broad therapeutic applicability rather than niche focus.

HitGen generates operating revenue through partner-funded research collaborations — technology access fees, milestone payments, and royalties — rather than drawing on a single family's wealth or a closed fund structure. The firm raised growth capital via its 2020 Shanghai STAR Market IPO and subsequent share placements, including the December 2023 round earmarked for DEL library expansion. This publicly traded structure makes HitGen an unusual hybrid: a capital-markets-funded drug-discovery platform with biotech-like upside and CRO-like recurring revenue.