Pierre Fabre Laboratories, a France-based medical and beauty care company, announced on Monday that it has signed a long-term collaboration with Vernalis (R&D) Ltd, a UK-based, fully owned subsidiary of HitGen Inc., to identify pre-clinical candidates against multiple oncology targets.

Under the terms of the agreement, Vernalis will use its expertise to enable drug discovery against an undisclosed portfolio of targets and use fragment and structure-based methods to identify small molecules that modulate their activity. This research will be combined with the oncology experience of Pierre Fabre Laboratories to identify drug candidates for treatment of a range of cancers for further development and commercialisation by Pierre Fabre Laboratories.

The research at Vernalis will be funded by Pierre Fabre Laboratories who will also pay research and clinical milestones and royalties on marketed products. The detailed terms of the agreement have not been not disclosed.