Evotec wins service contract from P&G Pharma
discovery and chemical development services to Procter & Gamble
Pharmaceuticals in a lift for its outsourcing business.
While financial terms were not disclosed, Evotec said it will provide services ranging from assay development, screening, medicinal and computational chemistry to scale-up and pharmaceutical manufacture.
Evotec has been trying to build up its development services business as a way to fund its in-house drug development activities in central nervous system therapies, and signing a major partner like P&G is a boost to its ambitions in this area.
Earlier this month the company, based in Germany and the UK, announced a two-year screening collaboration with Spanish drug company Almirall, and it also has ongoing medicinal chemistry collaborations with Switzerland's Roche and Belgium's Solvay, amongst others.
Relations between Evotec and P&G started at the end of 2004 with a pilot screening programme for a challenging therapeutic target. This work was successfully completed, and subsequently the work has been expanded to include additional targets, and the companies have signed additional agreements for medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutical development scale-up services.
Dr Mark Ashton, executive vice president, business development services, at Evotec, described the collaboration as 'a broad and truly integrated relationship that involves many disciplines of pharmaceutical discovery'.
"Adding flexible and highly competent R&D capacity is an important element in our corporate strategy," said Dr Joseph Gardner, director of research & development chemistry and discovery technologies at P&G Pharmaceuticals.
