Hamburg, Germany - Evotec AG (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, TecDAX 30, "Evotec") announced today that the second milestone has been achieved in its four-year drug discovery collaboration with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (Osaka, Japan, "Takeda").
 
Evotec has granted Takeda exclusive rights to a novel target in Alzheimer's disease based on successful target identification and validation work triggering a milestone payment of over one million Euros. Importantly, Evotec is eligible for substantial future milestone payments on the successful clinical development of compounds acting on the selected target. The collaboration is productively progressing into the fourth year and Evotec is entitled to further milestone payments should Takeda select additional targets from Evotec's target database. 
 
Dr John Kemp, Executive Vice President Research & Development at Evotec, commented: "We are extremely proud that we have reached our second project milestone with Takeda. Over the past three years we have made excellent progress in building substantial expertise and IP around novel Alzheimer's disease targets. The relationship with Takeda is very productive and we are looking forward to jointly leveraging our innovative Alzheimer's disease toolbox during the years to come."
 
The four-year collaboration between Evotec and Takeda (see press release of 1 August 2003) is aimed at jointly identifying and validating novel targets relating to different aspects of the causes and progression of Alzheimer's disease, with the goal of developing innovative small molecule therapeutics. Total payments to Evotec will reach up to EUR 20 million covering access fees to Evotec's proprietary database of Alzheimer's disease-related targets, research funding and success based milestone payments relating to the selection of targets for further drug discovery. Additional substantial milestones would also be payable on the successful clinical development of compounds acting on selected targets. Further financial details of the collaboration are not disclosed.
 
Contact: Anne Hennecke, Director, Investor Relations & Corporate Communications, Evotec AG, Phone: +49-40-56081-286, anne.hennecke@evotec.com