Hox Therapeutics and Vernalis announce a drug discovery collaboration in oncology
Hox Therapeutics and Vernalis announce a drug discovery collaboration in oncology
Hox Therapeutics Ltd (“Hox”) a private biotechnology company developing highly targeted cancer therapies and Vernalis (R&D) Ltd (“Vernalis”), a fully owned subsidiary of HitGen Inc., are pleased to announce a collaboration to identify inhibitors against an undisclosed oncology target.
Under the terms of the agreement, Vernalis will use its state-of-the-art protein science and Hit ID platforms to produce the target protein, and to identify and characterise small molecule inhibitors of the target. The research at Vernalis will be funded by Hox. Financial terms have not been disclosed.
James Murray, Research Director of Vernalis, said, “This partnership is built on Vernalis’s strong record for innovation in drug discovery to generate clinical candidates. We look forward to working closely with Hox to successfully achieve the goals of this collaboration”.
Nicholas Adams, CEO of Hox Therapeutics, said, “We are delighted to be working with Vernalis on this project. They have proven expertise in being able to identify inhibitors against the protein target that we’re interested in”.
About Hox Therapeutics Ltd
Hox Therapeutics is a preclinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of innovative, highly targeted medicines for the treatment of cancer.
For more information, please visit www.hoxtherapeutics.com
About Vernalis
Vernalis is a world leader in fragment and structure-based drug discovery with a record of progressing targets from concept to clinic. Based in Cambridge, UK, we have generated development candidates across oncology, neurodegeneration, anti-infectives and inflammation, through global collaborations. Vernalis is a wholly owned subsidiary of HitGen Inc (688222.SH).
For more information about Vernalis, please visit Homepage – Vernalis
Latest News
Upcoming Events
9th – 11th November 2026
Cologne, Germany
Bio Europe 2026
Attendees:
Ben Davis PhD
Research Fellow and Director of Business Development
Ben Davis PhD
Research Fellow and Director of Business Development
Dr Ben Davis is an NMR spectroscopist and biophysicist by training, although since 2022 he has focussed on Business Development. However, he still maintains an active interest in developing new methods to enable Fragment Based Drug Discovery, particularly against challenging targets. Ben studied for his PhD in protein folding with Professor Alan Fersht at Cambridge University, and then studied molecular interactions at UCL before joining RiboTargets, now Vernalis, in 1998. He has contributed to seven books on FBDD since 2012, and has been an author on more than thirty scientific publications. He is a frequent speaker at scientific conferences.
Kerry Waters MBA
Commercial Director
Kerry Waters MBA
Commercial Director
Kerry brings nearly 30 years of drug discovery experience across government, pharmaceutical (MSD and GlaxoSmithKline) and contract research industries (Transpharmation Ltd, Sygnature Discovery Ltd), including 8 years in business development. During this time, Kerry has successfully driven sales growth globally across standalone services and fully integrated drug discovery programmes amounting to £millions per year and fostered key strategic partnerships with biotechs and VCs. Kerry completed her Master’s in Business Administration with the Open University in 2021.