SUZHOU, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MabSpace Biosciences Co., Ltd. announced today that it has signed a collaborative contract with Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co., Ltd, one of the leading innovative pharmaceutical companies in China, to co-develop novel antibody therapeutics on two targets.

“MabSpace is honored to work with a prestigious company like Hengrui who has extensive capabilities in process development, manufacturing, clinical development and commercialization”

According to the agreement, MabSpace will be responsible for the discovery and selection of humanized lead antibodies, while Hengrui will get exclusive global rights on the resulting therapeutic candidates for the nominated targets, and will further develop the selected candidate molecules.

“MabSpace is honored to work with a prestigious company like Hengrui who has extensive capabilities in process development, manufacturing, clinical development and commercialization,” said Dr. Xueming Qian, Chairman and CEO of MabSpace. “MabSpace’s strength is our unique immune tolerance breaking-based antibody discovery platform technology, and our experience in generating novel therapeutic antibodies with differentiated profile and global IP.”

“MabSpace’s integrated capabilities of in vitro and in vivo pharmacological profiling from target to candidate molecule selection plus extensive industrial experience of its key founder in antibody discovery give us extra confidence in a successful collaboration,” commented Dr. Lianshan Zhang, President of Global R&D at Hengrui.

About Hengrui

Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co., Ltd., established in 1970, is a fully integrated pharmaceutical company in China, with annual net sales of over US$1.2 billion and an annual rate of over 20% in the past few years. It is recognized as the top innovative home-grown drug company, with about 20 new molecular entities entering clinical trials and dozens more under pre-clinical development. Hengrui's products and R&D span over multiple therapeutic areas, such as oncology and hematology, anesthesiology and pain management, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, contrast media, and anti-inflammation. Visit http://www.hrs.com.cn for further information.