Evotec creates long-term growth opportunities by initiating “Campus Levi-Montalcini” in Verona

• EVOTEC ACQUIRES THE VERONA SITE FROM GSK AND SECURES CAPACITY FOR LONG-TERM GROWTH
• EMPLOYEES VOTE FOR SITE TO BE NAMED “CAMPUS LEVI-MONTALCINI” IN HONOUR OF ITALIAN NOBEL LAUREATE RITA LEVI-MONTALCINI

Hamburg, Germany, 01 July 2021:
Evotec SE (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, MDAX/TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809) today announced that Evotec has added significant opportunities for further, long-term growth by acquiring the Verona site from GlaxoSmithKline SpA (“GSK”). During a site meeting, the employees also decided on a new name for their campus. In commemoration of Italian Nobel laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini, the Verona site will be named “Campus Levi-Montalcini” going forward.

Campus Levi-Montalcini is one of Evotec’s fully integrated powerhouses that offers expertise, capacity, capabilities and know-how in integrated R&D. The site comprises all technologies and services needed to develop a drug discovery project from the idea, through pre-clinical and clinical development, all the way to the market – including INDiGO, the Company’s integrated and interdisciplinary service for accelerated drug development as well as broad and deep expertise in API manufacturing, pre-formulation and cGMP manufacturing of the drug product.

Evotec has been operating at its Verona site since acquiring Aptuit in 2017 and currently employs approximately 750 employees on Campus Levi-Montalcini. Both the existing buildings as well as the plot hold further potential to enter the next growth phase in Verona and continue to build capacity as needed to support the Company’s global strategic framework Action Plan 2025: “The data-driven R&D Autobahn to Cures”.

Dr Werner Lanthaler, Chief Executive Officer of Evotec, commented: “Evotec is committed to its vision of efficiently delivering new and highly effective therapeutics to patients who urgently need them. In order to truly deliver on this mission, our sustainable growth strategy builds on complementary clusters of excellence. Acquiring the site will give us plenty of opportunities to further grow our business in Verona and we are proud to call the site Campus Levi-Montalcini.”

Dr Ciriaco Maraschiello, EVP, Global Head of Drug Development and Verona Site Head, added: “The acquisition of the Verona R&D campus from GSK, one of the major R&D centres in the country, means continuity and further development of R&D excellence in Italy. Becoming the owner of the Verona R&D facility strengthens Evotec’s fully integrated R&D solutions for our partners. This is also an opportunity to create the right environment on site to continue to be the best at what we do every day; contributing to the discovery and development of better medicines and ultimately improving the quality of life for patients.”

No financial details of the transaction were disclosed.

About Rita Levi-Montalcini

Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in Turin in 1909. At age twenty, she asked her father permission to engage in a professional career, graduated from high school, and enrolled in medical school. Like her contemporaries Salvador Luria (Nobel laureate 1969) and Renato Dulbecco (Nobel laureate 1975), Levi-Montalcini was a student of the famous Italian histologist, Giuseppe Levi. 

After graduating medical school summa cum laude in 1936, Levi-Montalcini enrolled in a three-year specialisation course in neurology and psychiatry. Returning from a visit to a neurological institute in Brussels shortly before the German invasion of Belgium, Levi-Montalcini and her family, who were Jewish, faced the barring of academic and professional careers to non-Aryan citizens in Italy. During this time, Levi-Montalcini built up a small research facility in her own bedroom.

After the war, Levi-Montalcini resumed her academic career at the University of Turin, but in 1947 she received an invitation from Viktor Hamburger to join him at Washington University in St. Louis. What was initially planned as a ten to twelve month stay turned into a life-changing decision. It was there that, in 1952, Levi-Montalcini did her most important work: isolating nerve growth factor (“NGF”) from certain cancerous tissues. Rita Levi-Montalcini stayed in St. Louis more than a decade, becoming an Associate Professor in 1956, and a full Professor in 1958. After establishing a second research unit in Rome in 1962, she divided her time between Rome and St. Louis, further building on the research with Stanley Cohen on the NGF antibodies. In 1986, both Rita Levi-Montalcini and Stanley Cohen were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their foundational work in this field. 

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS 

Information set forth in this press release contains forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements contained herein represent the judgement of Evotec as of the date of this press release. Such forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.