Some positive milestone news for Evotec: Bayer collaboration enters animal testing
The German contract research organisation (CRO) teamed up with Bayer to develop endometriosis candidates in 2012 in a five year deal intended to generate three new treatments.
According to company COO Mario Polywka the first candidate has now entered animal studies.
"We are very pleased to achieve this validation of our joint work with the Bayer team. Both teams of scientists have developed a tremendous relationship and collaborative way of working and we look forward to continue this productive work and focus our efforts on bringing forward new drug candidates to tackle this significant disease."
Financial terms of the milestone were not disclosed.
The progress will be a welcome distraction from Evotec’s efforts to extract a payment of €3.4 from Andromeda Biotech after the completion of a Phase III trial of a candidate diabetes drug.
Evotec announced it would sue after Hyperion Therapeutics – which bought Andromeda in April from Clal Biotechnology Industry - revealed that an Andromeda that an employee had faked data during the trial.
The German contractor's CEO Werner Lanthaler told us “We are entitled to this [milestone] as the trial was completed, independent to whether or not the data was faked,” adding that “Unfortunately in this case it was, which was something no one could have ever expected.”
Multiple MS projects
In other news, Evotec has been called in to manage multiple sclerosis (MS) drug development projects by a coalition of institutions in an effort backed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF.
The separate projects –initiated by the Deutsches Rheuma-Forschungszentrum (DRFZ) an institute of the Leibniz Association and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) – are examining cytokine regulation, neuroprotection and tolerance induction in the treatment of MS.
Evotec’s role will be to provide drug discovery, project management and commercialisation services if any candidate identified by the €5m research pact shows promise.
CSO Cord Dohrmann said: “These novel approaches to fight MS, the disease with the highest socioeconomic impact worldwide, perfectly fit to our EVT Innovate strategy to approach disease-modifying innovation and to identify first-in-class molecules eagerly sought for by the biotech and pharmaceutical industry.
“We are proud to partner with these leading German research institutions and groups to translate their exceptional disease know-how into drug candidates and furthermore into novel products."
