European CRO Evotec cashes in on strategic partnerships

Contract drug developer Evotec AG has achieved multiple milestones resulting in €8m ($9.8m) in revenue thanks to its collaborations with Bayer and Janssen Pharmaceuticals.

The revenues, which will be recognised in FY 2014, were reached in Evotec’s multi-target collaboration with Bayer HealthCare in endometriosis and thanks to its partnership with Janssen for the EVT100 series for the treatment of CNS diseases.

The revenues come as Evotec is in negotiations over a $310m (€250m) strategic partnership with Sanofi that will look to tackle major initiatives over five years in oncology and related to Evotec’s compound library.

Bayer

In its multi-target collaboration with Bayer, Evotec has reached important milestones for the transition of certain molecules into pre-clinical development for the treatment of endometriosis. These milestones were achieved under the agreement between Evotec and Bayer signed in October 2012.

The goal of this collaboration is to identify three clinical candidates within the five-year alliance. Both parties contribute innovative drug targets and high-quality technology infrastructures and share the responsibility for early research and pre-clinical characterisation of potential clinical candidates in the disease area of endometriosis.

Janssen

In its collaboration with Janssen on a NR2B subtype selective NMDA-antagonist portfolio for development against CNS (central nervous system) diseases, Evotec has reached an important validation milestone for a new, unnamed compound.

Ohio St.

On Monday, Evotec also unveiled a new relationship with the Ohio St. University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.

The objective of the collaboration is to develop a novel mechanism for engaging the KRas target discovered at the university using Evotec's tech platform and expertise in drug discovery and pre-clinical development.

KRas is a small GTPase (a large family of hydrolase enzymes) regulating the RAS/MAPK signalling cascade that governs cell division. Mutations in KRas are early transforming events in tumourigenesis and are highly prevalent in ancers such as lung, colon and pancreatic cancer.

Evotec previously formed a research partnership with Harvard to study ALS.