Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN; TASE: EVGN) and ELEO Inc., a private South Korean biotech based in Daejeon, announced a collaboration to discover oral small-molecule inhibitors of the PCSK9 pathway, pairing Evogene's AI-driven computational chemistry platform with ELEO's biological discovery work in lipid disease. The collaboration places Evogene among a growing group of companies pursuing orally administered PCSK9 inhibitors, a field that transitioned from an experimental concept to a commercially validated drug class with the recent FDA approval of Merck's enlicitide.
Developing orally available PCSK9 inhibitors has proven challenging because small molecules must disrupt the interaction between PCSK9 and the LDL receptor, a protein-protein interface traditionally considered difficult to target with conventional medicinal chemistry. Under the collaboration, Evogene's contribution is its computational chemistry platform, which generates and prioritizes candidate structures in silico before wet-lab synthesis. ELEO is providing what the company describes as proprietary biological capabilities relevant to PCSK9 pathway suppression, though neither party has disclosed a specific lead series or nominated compound. No financial specifics were disclosed.
The agreement fits a pattern Evogene has run repeatedly over the past year: it has struck a string of similar computational-chemistry tie-ups, including with Unravel Biosciences on demyelinating disease, with Professor Ehud Gazit and Tel Aviv University on metabolic disease, with Systasy and LMU University Hospital Munich on neutrophil-driven inflammation, and with Tel Aviv University's Blavatnik Center for Drug Discovery on broader AI-driven small-molecule work. Evogene has also been layering AI agent capability into its ChemPass platform through an expanded Google Cloud partnership.
The oral PCSK9 field has shifted rapidly from scientific ambition to commercial reality. In July 2026, Merck's oral macrocyclic peptide PCSK9 inhibitor enlicitide received FDA approval for adults with hypercholesterolemia, becoming the first oral therapy targeting the pathway after demonstrating LDL-C reductions across the Phase III CORALreef program. AstraZeneca's AZD0780, a conventional oral small molecule rather than a peptide, remains in clinical development following positive Phase IIb PURSUIT data, providing proof that small-molecule chemistry can also engage the historically challenging PCSK9 target. Established injectable therapies—including the monoclonal antibodies evolocumab and alirocumab, the siRNA inclisiran, and LIB Therapeutics' lerodalcibep—continue to anchor the broader PCSK9 market.