The Swiss firm announced the deal this week, explaining that the idea is to create production routes for active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) using the yeast based platform with which it makes antifungals, sweeteners and “wellness” ingredients.
Evolva said it had been given a 20% stake in its new US partner and predicted the deal would see it receive a “low single digit million US dollar sum over the next 12.” The firm is also due to be given R&D funding under the agreement.
Details of the APIs involved were not provided, although Evolva did say it will be working on production routes for “existing” drug actives.
It also said the collaboration “will both benefit from, and provide benefits to” its existing product development efforts.
Spokesman Paul Verbraeken said the aim is to use Evolva's technology to make the APIs quickly and more cheaply than existing methods. He added that the work will be done at our Basel R&D site.
Pharma deals
The majority of Evolva’s partnerships are with companies in the food and agrichemicalsindustries - with Cargill, Ajinomoto, BASF and Roquette being the notable examples. However, it has signed a number of licensing deals with drug developers.
In 2013, it licensed an anti-inflammatory compound called EV-077 to Sweden-based pharmaceutical firm Serodus. The compound, since renamed SER150, is being examined in a Phase IIa study as a treatment for diabetic kidney disease.
Emergent Biosciences, a supplier of anthrax countermeasures to the US government, also has a deal with Evolva.
In 2014, the US firm licensed Evolva’s antibacterial programme – including the candidate EV-35-in return for royalties on product sales.
According to Evolva’s first half results, the EV-35 deal generated royalties of CHF4m ($4.1m) in the six months to June 30.