Pharmacin Advances into Innovative Drugs, Partners with OpenSrcBio to Develop Novel PDE4

VCBeat learned exclusively that on May 13, Shenzhen Pharmacin Co., Ltd. ("Pharmacin") and Hefei OpenSRCBio Pharmaceutical Technology Co., Ltd. ("OpenSRCBio") announced that they had signed a cooperation agreement.

According the agreement, the two parties will cooperate on the PDE4B inhibitor project independently developed by OpenSRCBio, and plan to take Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) as the first development indication. Pharmacin will take charge of preclinical research, druggability study, complex formulation development and CMC route design, and further advance IND/CTA applications as well as subsequent clinical development.

Pharmacin, relying on its drugability formulation platform and experience in small molecule innovative drug development, will focus on advancing the drugability research, complex formulation development, pharmacokinetic optimization, and CMC developability studies of the key projects. Both parties hope that by combining drug discovery capabilities with forward-looking drugability, formulation, and CMC capacities, they can further enhance the clinical translation potential and subsequent development success rate of the projects.

IPF is a progressive, irreversible, and poorly prognostic fibrotic interstitial lung disease, with significant unmet clinical needs remaining for patients. PDE4B, as an important regulatory target in both inflammatory and fibrotic pathways, has garnered substantial attention in the global drug development field in recent years. Selective or preferential PDE4B inhibition holds promise to exert both anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic effects by modulating cAMP-related signaling pathways, offering a new therapeutic strategy for IPF and other fibrotic diseases.

OpenSrcBio is an innovative enterprise focused on the discovery and development of novel small-molecule drugs, committed to addressing unmet clinical therapeutic needs. Leveraging its proprietary clustered artificial intelligence platform, the company deeply integrates AI with the drug research and development process, significantly enhancing the efficiency of drug screening and optimization to achieve faster and more precise drug development. Through intelligent-driven innovation, Shengruizehua is accelerating the advancement of small-molecule drug research and development, bringing more targeted treatment options to patients and the market.

Pharmacin’s core team comes from Boehringer-Ingelheim, leveraging its technical platform for poorly soluble drugs and experience in innovative small-molecule drug development, the company will participate in the optimization of early candidate compounds, and advance formulation and process development, pharmacokinetic optimization, CMC route design and complex formulation development in subsequent stages. Its druggability and formulation platform is designed to systematically address development bottlenecks of complex small molecules in absorption, exposure, dosage, stability and manufacturability.

This collaboration marks a further deepening of Pharmacin's innovative drug pipeline layout. Pharmacin will continue to focus on the core concept that "drug-likeness determines the value of innovative drugs", concentrating on high-value yet challenging-to-develop small molecule innovative drugs. By implementing strategies of early drug-likeness assessment, early formulation development, and early CMC (Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls) planning, Pharmacin aims to reduce clinical development risks and enhance the global competitiveness of its innovative drug projects.