Discovery Biopharmaceutical Services for Complex Assets

Evotec’s discovery biopharmaceutical services accelerate delivery strategies and developability for next-generation therapeutics. For biotech and pharmaceutical companies advancing complex drug candidates and/or challenging drug delivery, this integrated service optimizes preclinical robustness, de-risks development, and accelerates the transition from discovery to early development. 

By applying development foresight to drug discovery, we help you transform discovery-stage complexity into a clear, data-driven path towards preclinical and clinical development success.

Evotec's discovery biopharmaceutical services are built around three pillars of expertise, each of which addresses our approach to biopharmaceutical challenges:

1. Build developability in from day one to see risk earlier
2. Optimise performance to advance promising therapeutics
3. Connect insight to make better decisions

While biopharmaceutical challenges are often a primary cause of late-stage attrition, Evotec’s biopharmaceutical services limit liabilities by conducting detailed screenings of early-stage assets. Some techniques include: 

• Solid-form screening
• Formulation development
• In vitro dissolution/biorelevant testing
• In vitro and in vivo DMPK assessment
• In silico PBPK modeling, which can significantly reduce development risk 

Evotec’s biopharmaceutical services help biotechnology and large pharmaceutical clients with early-stage assets, especially those:

• Facing low or poor in vivo exposure
• Searching for an appropriate formulation to support reliable PKPD understanding
• Requiring a specific and/or complex controlled drug delivery system
• Aiming for a full pharmaceutical developability risk assessment before progressing into the IND pathway
• Searching for an alternative solid form before or during development

We address these challenges with the speed, flexibility, and compound efficiency afforded by operating within drug discovery. 

At Evotec, we believe that development insight belongs in discovery because development-informed discovery enables earlier risk understanding and better development decisions. We identify and mitigate biopharmaceutical risks earlier, advancing next-generation therapeutics with greater confidence.

Development foresight for complex assets means anticipating downstream scientific, manufacturing, regulatory, commercial, and clinical challenges early in the life of a therapeutic program, ahead of costly investments. 

Operating within drug discovery gives us reduced compound requirements and faster turnaround, so we can identify and address development risks while course correction is still practical.

In modern biopharmaceutical development, a therapy's success depends on both biological efficacy and whether it can be reliably converted into a medicine that works on a global scale. Evotec applies that development lens at the discovery stage to identify and mitigate developability risks before clinical development begins, increasing downstream success. 

Our discovery biopharmaceutical services are backed by a substantial track record across solid-state science, physical chemistry, early drug formulation, and developability assessment (Figure 1).

Evotec is highly experienced in providing biopharmaceutical solutions, including long-acting injectables and oral peptide delivery for pharmaceutical companies operating in human or animal health. Read more in our case studies.

Innovative delivery strategies improve therapeutic performance. But not every modality follows the same development path, so we choose the right strategy for the modality. 

Biopharmaceutical challenges can be related to exposure and delivery, or tied to the physical and chemical developability of the molecule itself. These challenges can cause irreparable problems if they aren’t addressed at the discovery stage.

Exposure and delivery (multi-modality): 

• Low new chemical entity exposure
• Long-acting injectables
• Oral peptide delivery
• Challenging route of administration
• Tissue targeting
• Protecting API from degradation in the formulation 

Developability:

• IP opportunities
• Crystallization challenges
• Polymorphism tendency
• Alternative solid-form selection
• Leverage crystallization for purification
• Large-scale chiral separation

Evotec's discovery biopharmaceutical solutions identify and address both types of challenges at the stage when course-correction is still time- and cost-efficient.

Our multi-modality framework integrates advanced solid-state screening, formulation, and delivery technologies, as well as co-localized in vivo studies, analytical sciences, and DMPK profiling. 

This enables data-driven decision-making, tailored risk mitigation, and development-informed insights from the outset. 

Backed by scientific depth and an innovative approach, our discovery biopharmaceutical services are built to address the most complex challenges.

Unlike fragmented CRO providers who offer isolated services, Evotec’s biopharmaceutical solution brings together the critical disciplines required for successful biopharmaceutical development. 

We connect capabilities that are rarely available under one roof at the discovery stage, including:

• End-to-end discovery of pharmaceutical solutions
• Rapid, cost-effective approaches to solving biopharmaceutical challenges with low compound requirements
• Support for new modalities, controlled drug delivery, and pharmaceutical risk assessment
• Standalone capabilities and an entry point for development work
• Exceptional integrated capabilities, including:
  • In-depth physical chemistry
  • Enabling formulations screening to support PKPD understanding
  • Customized in vitro ADME
  • Full structural analysis and purification
  • Solid-state screening and characterization
  • Rodent and higher species PK
  • PBPK modeling

Explore how Evotec's integrated biopharmaceutical expertise has helped overcome complex drug exposure or delivery and developability challenges at the discovery stage, enabling earlier risk identification, informed decision-making and more confident progressions towards the clinic.

Evotec's discovery biopharmaceutical services deliver two core outcomes for complex asset programs. 

Customized formulation and controlled delivery strategies, developed using miniaturized technologies at the milligram scale, maximize the reliability of preclinical in vivo studies and are aligned with targeted drug delivery approaches from the outset.

Our pharmaceutical risk assessment includes solid-form selection and performance testing. It provides a full biopharmaceutics and developability assessment for all new chemical entities, along with an associated risk mitigation plan for the clinic. It’s also conducted at the milligram scale, minimizing compound requirements at a stage where every milligram counts.

Both are delivered within Evotec's discovery environment, so partners benefit from our speed, flexibility, and fit-for-purpose approach.

Ready to de-risk your complex asset?