HONG KONG & SHANGHAI & SUZHOU, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zion Pharma Limited, an emerging Chinese biotechnology company focused on the development of brain-penetrable compounds, today announced the initiation of its Phase 1 study, in the United States, for its lead program ZN-A-1041. ZN-A-1041, is a best-in-class, small molecule tyrosine kinase receptor inhibitor targeting HER2. ZN-A-1041 is being developed to address the unmet medical need associated with brain metastases accompanying HER2+ advanced breast cancer. The U.S. trial is being conducted at several sites including the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the Duke Cancer Institute.
"We are excited to have initiated our Phase 1 trial for ZN-A-1041,” stated Zack Cheng, Ph.D., Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder at Zion Pharma Limited. “With dosing of the first patient in our Phase 1 study, Zion becomes a clinical stage company. A feat we are particularly proud of as we achieved this within 30 months of forming the company.” Dr. Cheng continued, “We recently completed a $20 million Series A follow-on that will provide us sufficient funding for the next two years. This is an extremely exciting time for our team, and we look forward to advancing highly effective therapies to those patients in need.”
Dr. Ding Zhou, Ph.D., CSO and Co-Founder, at Zion Pharma Limited added, “With our recent financing, we expect to complete the ZN-A-1041 Phase 1 study in the U.S. and China and advance several of our other programs into IND-enabling studies.”
In addition, the company announced that Wendy Li, M.D. has joined the company as Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Li brings to Zion Pharma 10 years of clinical practice and over 20 years of hands-on experience in providing medical and scientific leadership in clinical research multiple therapeutic areas, with previous experience in oncology clinical development at Genentech, Sanofi, and Pfizer. Previously, Dr. Li has been VP/CMO with Sihuan Pharma/Xuanzhu Shandong and CMO at Exuma Biotech. Dr. Li received her M.D. from the Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Studies in China.
About Zion Pharma Limited
Zion Pharma is a private, clinical stage biotech company focused on the development of novel, small molecule, anti-tumoral agents. Founded in 2018, the company is headquartered in Hong Kong with research operations in mainland China – Shanghai and Suzhou. The company is applying an innovative drug discovery approach, capitalizing on its DMPK expertise, to develop a pipeline of proprietary First-in-Class/Best-in-Class compounds focused on therapeutic targets which drive tumor inhibition. Additional information about Zion Pharma is available at www.zionpharma.com.
