- Strategic alliance with CHDI aimed at accelerating efforts to develop drugs against Huntington's disease
- Entails research revenue of up to US$ 37.5 million over the next three years
- One of the largest strategic drug discovery alliances within Evotec
Hamburg, Germany | Abingdon, UK - 14 January 2010: Evotec AG (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, TecDAX) today announced the extension of its collaboration with CHDI Foundation, Inc. (CHDI) through to the end of 2012. The collaboration, which is aimed at finding new treatments for Huntington's disease and represents one of the largest joint innovation drug discovery CNS alliances within Evotec, will provide Evotec with up to US$ 37.5 million in research funding over the next three years. Evotec has been providing research and innovation support to CHDI since 2006.
"As a proven leader in the field of drug discovery, Evotec continues to be an important strategic partner in our search for effective treatments for Huntington's disease. Their integrated drug discovery capabilities are helping us advance numerous drug candidates towards the clinic and we look forward to continuing to work with Evotec over the coming years" said Dr Robert Pacifici, Chief Scientific Officer of CHDI.
The extension of this collaboration is a further validation of Evotec's broad expertise in CNS drug discovery and development. Evotec will provide a full range of neurological research activities and expertise to CHDI, including integrated biology and chemistry supported by compound and library management, target validation, screening, computational chemistry, in vitro and in vivo PK and protein crystallography. Evotec has made a significant investment to put together an integrated platform to provide drug discovery solutions, especially within the area of neuroscience.
Dr Werner Lanthaler, Chief Executive Officer of Evotec, commented: "We are delighted that CHDI has chosen to further extend our strategic alliance. We view this as an important step in our work with CHDI to develop novel therapies for Huntington's disease and meet this urgent medical need. At the same time it will allow Evotec to gain further experience in defining the underlying mechanisms of other neurodegenerative diseases."