-Four contracts signed since March 2006 covering most of Evotec's drug discovery capability -
 
Hamburg, Germany | Oxford, UK | Los Angeles, CA, USA - Evotec AG (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, TecDAX 30) today announced that CHDI, Inc., a not-for profit organisation pursuing a biotech approach to finding therapies for Huntington Disease, has chosen Evotec as a strategic partner for helping them advance its drug discovery programmes.
 
Since March 2006, Evotec and CHDI have signed four agreements covering medicinal chemistry, assay development and medium-throughput screening (MTS), ultra-high-throughput screening (uHTS) and library synthesis and management services. These contracts cover most of Evotec's integrated discovery offering. With access to these resources, CHDI has all the tools in place to rapidly discover novel drugs against Huntington Disease targets and further optimise them to the point of clinical development. Both parties envisage expanding the agreements to accommodate further discovery capabilities of Evotec as and when required.
 
In the course of this collaboration Evotec will apply its biological science expertise to develop assays, including those designed for high content screening, against high priority biological targets thought to be of importance to treating Huntington Disease provided by CHDI and the High Q Foundation. Working with medicinal chemists at CHDI, Evotec will apply its own medicinal chemistry and parallel synthesis skills to synthesise libraries of novel small molecule compounds. Evotec will also use its proprietary platform to screen these compounds and Evotec's own library to identify compounds with biological activity. Using Evotec's medicinal chemistry, profiling and ADMET (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion and Toxicity) expertise active compounds will be further characterised, improving their potency and selectivity to generate lead molecules for further progression into clinical trials.
 
"As collaborative enablers, CHDI depends on a network of academic and industrial partners to conduct its research efforts. Evotec has an impressive and integrated suite of core competencies that will be critical for our efforts. Looking at Evotec's breadth of skills and expertise in drug discovery coupled with their profound knowledge of CNS diseases we believe we have found the ideal partner in our search for novel treatments that may slow or prevent Huntington Disease," commented Dr. Robert Pacifici, Chief Scientific Adviser to CHDI.
 
"We are delighted that CHDI, a prestigious organisation dedicated to Huntington Disease research, has chosen us as their partner for drug discovery. With our integrated offering in this field and our CNS expertise we are ideally positioned to add significant value to their programmes up to clinical development and beyond," said Dr Mark Ashton, Executive Vice President Business Development Services at Evotec.
 
Contact: Anne Hennecke, Director, Investor Relations & Corporate Communications, Evotec AG, Phone: +49-40-56081-286, anne.hennecke@evotec.com