Patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) offer unprecedented opportunities for in vitro disease modelling and have unlocked new possibilities for the development of more efficacious and safer drugs. Since 2013, Evotec has built an industrialized iPSC infrastructure that represents one of the largest and most sophisticated in the industry. Today, it forms an integral part of our PanOmics-driven drug discovery platform and can be applied to a broad range of therapeutic areas. It has been created with the key goal of developing more accurate and scalable models to investigate disease etiology and to industrialize iPSC-based drug screening in terms of throughput, reproducibility and robustness in miniaturized 384-well format. 

While iPSC disease models are traditionally utilized in two-dimensional monocultures, we are also investigating next generation multilineage technologies, such as co-cultures and organoids, to attain greater physiological relevance. Our ’clinical-trial-in-a-dish’ approach allows testing of novel drug candidates on iPSC-derived models from a representative sample of human patients in a multiplexed fashion and has vast potential for multiple areas of drug discovery – from early stages of lead optimization to regulatory safety assessment.

Our iPSC platform includes > 20 diverse cell types covering brain, heart, retina, kidney, liver, and immune cells with many more cell types currently under development. It is uniquely interconnected with other Evotec core technologies, defining disease signatures and causal relationships between genetic mutations and perturbation of specific molecular pathways and predicting tox or risk score profiles. This creates powerful human translational models that will ultimately enable us to identify better targets and drugs for those patients suffering from diseases with high unmet medical need.

This effort was initially enabled by a research collaboration involving world-leading scientists at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. Over the years, Evotec has established long-standing strategic collaborations with Celgene/BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden, Axol Bioscience, Fraunhofer IME-SP to support Evotec’s growing iPSC activities. In addition, we are working together with a number of academic institutions to further broaden and strengthen our iPSC capabilities.

Evotec is committed to accelerating the pace of discoveries to bring new technologies and treatments to patients faster. For us, partnering is a key element in delivering therapeutics to patients with unmet medical needs. We have successfully developed multiple different drug discovery programs using human iPSC technology and collaborate with strategic partners to further expand our iPSC activities. Please contact us if you would like to learn more.