Hua Medicine announced dosing of the first patient in a Phase I drug-drug interaction trial of HMS5552 (dorzagliatin) in patients with insufficiently controlled T2D with metformin, DPP-4 inhibitor, or SGLT2 inhibitor, alone or in combination therapy (metformin plus DPP-4 inhibitor, or metformin plus SGLT-2 inhibitor). The trial is a pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic study of dorzagliatin in combination with empagliflozin to investigate the PK/PD of each drug alone or in combination. The primary endpoints are pharmacokinetic interaction between dorzagliatin and empagliflozin, and safety and tolerability of dorzagliatin with simultaneous administration of empagliflozin. The 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.