Hua Medicine announced dosing of the first patient in a clinical trial of HMS5552 (dorzagliatin) in patients with insufficiently controlled blood glucose levels with metformin, DPP-4 inhibitor, or SGLT-2 inhibitor, alone or in combination therapy. The trial is a pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) study of dorzagliatin in combination with sitagliptin to investigate the PK/PD of each drug alone or in combination. The primary endpoints are pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic interaction between dorzagliatin and sitagliptin, and safety and tolerability of dorzagliatin with simultaneous administration of sitagliptin. This trial is conducted in the United States. There are 435 million individuals with T2D globally, with a diagnosis rate of 54.2%. Diabetes imposes a large economic burden on the global healthcare system, costing USD 850 billion globally in 2017. Currently approved diabetes therapies cannot effectively control the progression of diabetics into more advanced stages of the diseases, which then leads to the many complications associated with severe diabetes, such as loss of vision, peripheral neuropathy, impaired kidney function, cardiovascular disease, and stroke.