Hox Therapeutics Ltd, a UK-based private biotechnology company developing highly targeted cancer therapies, announced on Tuesday that it has collaborated with Vernalis (R&D) Ltd, a UK-based fully owned subsidiary of China-based HitGen Inc.

The collaboration is aimed at identifying inhibitors against an undisclosed oncology target.

According to the terms of the contract, Vernalis is to utilise its protein science and Hit ID platforms to produce the target protein, and to identify and characterise small molecule inhibitors of the target. Hox is to fund the research at Vernalis.

Financial terms of the agreement were not revealed.