Hamburg, Germany – Evotec SE (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, MDAX/TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809) today announced that Bristol Myers Squibb has decided to exercise their option to extend its partnership with Evotec in the field of targeted protein degradation. Evotec and Bristol Myers Squibb (the successor in interest to Celgene) initiated this strategic drug discovery and development partnership in 2018 with the goal to identify first-in-class drug candidates initially focusing on solid tumours.
The partnership leverages Evotec’s proprietary PanOmics platform, which combines enhanced throughput proteomics, high throughput transcriptomics and cell imaging with the integrated data analysis platform PanHunter. Together with Evotec’s deep insights into the disease biology of oncology, the approach has generated a pipeline of novel first-in-class targeted protein degradation projects, two of which have transitioned successfully into lead optimisation after completing respective validation processes on Evotec’s platforms.
The high quality of the data and the number of promising drug targets identified using Evotec’s PanOmics and PanHunter platforms has led to the early extension of the partnership. The extension triggers an undisclosed payment to Evotec to further expand screening efforts and thus continue to grow the pipeline.
Dr Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, said: “Targeted protein degradation is an emerging new therapeutic modality with enormous potential to reach not only proven drug targets through a novel mechanism of action, but also traditionally undruggable targets and thus discover and develop first-in-class, disease-modifying therapeutics. The success of our collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb to date has led to Bristol Myers Squibb’s decision to expand and extend this collaboration. We are honoured and extremely proud to collaborate with the industry-leading company in the field of protein homeostasis and are very much looking forward to continue our efforts at an accelerated pace.”
ABOUT EVOTEC SE
Evotec is a drug discovery alliance and development partnership company focused on rapidly progressing innovative product approaches with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academics, patient advocacy groups and venture capitalists. We operate worldwide and our more than 3,700 employees provide the highest quality stand-alone and integrated drug discovery and development solutions. We cover all activities from target-to-clinic to meet the industry’s need for innovation and efficiency in drug discovery and development (EVT Execute). The Company has established a unique position by assembling top-class scientific experts and integrating state-of-the-art technologies as well as substantial experience and expertise in key therapeutic areas including neuronal diseases, diabetes and complications of diabetes, pain and inflammation, oncology, infectious diseases, respiratory diseases, fibrosis, rare diseases and women’s health. On this basis, Evotec has built a broad and deep pipeline of more than 100 co-owned product opportunities at clinical, pre-clinical and discovery stages (EVT Innovate). Evotec has established multiple long-term alliances with partners including Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, CHDI, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Sanofi, Takeda, UCB and others. For additional information please go to www.evotec.com and follow us on Twitter @Evotec.