Antengene Corporation Limited ("Antengene", SEHK: 6996.HK), a leading innovative biopharmaceutical company dedicated to discovering, developing and commercializing global first-in-class and/or best-in-class therapeutics in hematology and oncology; and MindRank AI, an innovative AI drug discovery company, today announced a long-term strategic partnership on the joint development of first-in-class small-molecule oncology drugs. To date, MindRank AI has already made contributions to the development of one of Antengene's pre-clinical stage drug candidates.

This collaboration marks the establishment of a synergistic alliance between a leading research-driven biopharmaceutical company and an innovative AI-powered drug discovery company to transform drug discovery and development. Antengene has a strong R&D team with global experience in the discovery and development of innovative drugs and proven capability in developing compounds for difficult-to-drug targets. To date, Antengene has built a broad and expanding pipeline of 13 clinical and pre-clinical assets, comprising 8 global rights assets and 5 assets with rights for Asia Pacific markets including the Greater China region. Meanwhile, MindRank AI will deploy its proprietary one-stop AI-driven drug discovery platform, Molecule Pro™, and its molecular dynamics platform, Molecule Dance™, to support Antengene's efforts in discovering and developing more first-in-class and best-in-class drug candidates.

Through this collaboration to advance the development of difficult-to-drug targets, Antengene and MindRank AI aim to improve the efficiency and success rate of the current drug discovery process. Both parties hope to address more unmet medical needs by delivering practice-changing therapeutics for patients.

Dr. Jay Mei, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Antengene, commented: "We are excited about this ground-breaking partnership with MindRank AI, established to accelerate our development of new therapies for difficult-to-drug targets. Antengene has built a pipeline of 13 assets over the past 4 years through both partnerships and in-house discovery. In 2021, we have seen our first in-house developed asset enter into clinical stage. We are confident that this collaboration between two industry leaders will further enhance our in-house discovery capabilities and bring more novel, broader and effective therapeutics to patients around the world."

Mr. Zhangming Niu, Founder and CEO of MindRank AI, noted: "We are very honored to be a strategic partner of Antengene, an industry-leader with robust R&D capabilities and a management team possessing experience in developing and commercializing some of the world's bestselling oncology drugs. We hope this synergistic collaboration of Antengene's deep expertise and MindRank's proprietary AI-powered drug discovery platform will result in more first-in-class oncology drugs for patients globally. Together, we will strive to close more treatment gaps and bring renewed hope to more patients."