Evotec Achieves Milestone in Medicinal Chemistry Collaboration with Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

 

  • Evotec receives milestone from Ono for the progression of novel protease inhibitors into lead optimisation

 

Hamburg, Germany / Abingdon, UK - 14 December 2009: Evotec AG (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, TecDAX) today announced that it has received a milestone payment from Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Ono) from its research collaboration aimed at identifying novel inhibitors for a protease target. The milestone is received for the progression of the medicinal chemistry collaboration into lead optimisation. The programme success validates again the strength of Evotec's Fragment Based Drug Discovery platform, EVOlutionTM, along with its integrated drug discovery capabilities, including biology, medicinal chemistry, structure based drug design and in vitro pharmacology.

Dr Mario Polywka, Chief Operating Officer of Evotec, commented: "We are delighted to have achieved this important milestone with Ono and once again to demonstrate the value that we bring to our partnership with them. The success of this project is a testament to the strong partnership between our two companies and we look forward to continuing working closely with our colleagues at Ono both on this programme as it progresses to the clinic as quickly as possible and also on our recently initiated collaboration on a second target as proactively as possible."

"We have a high regard for Evotec's drug discovery expertise and the capabilities and technologies used in progressing this collaboration. The achievement of this milestone further validates our strategy to work with the best collaborators in the industry. We look forward to reaching additional milestones together as our programmes progress", said Kazuhito Kawabata, Ph.D., Managing Director, Head of Research Headquarters and Director of Minase Research Institute at Ono.

Evotec and Ono are also collaborating on a second target, an ion channel, for which Ono will access Evotec's ion channel drug discovery platform and expertise. For this second programme Evotec will receive further research funding and milestone payments. 

 

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