Hamburg, Germany | Oxford, UK | Tokyo, Japan - Evotec AG (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, TecDAX 30) today announced that Sankyo (a wholly owned subsidiary of DAIICHI SANKYO COMPANY, LIMITED) has chosen Evotec as a partner to identify small molecule therapeutics for their pharmaceutical discovery projects.

Evotec will apply their skills and proprietary technologies in assay development and ultra-high throughput screening (uHTS) to identify biologically active molecules from its corporate library that interact with disease targets selected by Sankyo. Compounds identified in screening will be further characterised and prioritised by Evotec for progression into Sankyo's subsequent lead optimisation programmes.

Dr Mark Ashton, Executive Vice President Business Development Services at Evotec, said: "We are delighted and proud that Sankyo, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Japan, has selected us for these important drug finding projects. We enjoyed the constructive and open discussions during the planning phase of this collaboration. These projects represent another important milestone in strengthening our collaborative relationships with pharmaceutical companies in Japan."

"This project is an important extension of our lead discovery activities, and we appreciate Evotec's technological capabilities as well as the commitment to the project. We already enjoyed the atmosphere of mutual respect and believe that this collaboration will be successful," commented Dr Hideyuki Haruyama, Corporate Officer and General Manager, Research Institute at Sankyo.
 
Contact: Anne Hennecke, Director, Investor Relations & Corporate Communications, Evotec AG, Phone: +49-40-56081-286, anne.hennecke@evotec.com
Contact: Anne Hennecke, Director, Investor Relations & Corporate Communications, Evotec AG, Phone: +49-40-56081-286, anne.hennecke@evotec.com