Evotec and EQRx announce integrated drug discovery and development partnership

 

  • EQRX TO LEVERAGE EVOTEC’S UNIQUE DATA-DRIVEN INTEGRATED DRUG DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT ACCELERATOR PLATFORM
  • PARTNERSHIP AIMS TO BUILD UP JOINTLY OWNED PIPELINE TO DELIVER INNOVATIVE, AFFORDABLE AND ACCESSIBLE MEDICINES TO PATIENTS

Hamburg, Germany, and Cambridge, Mass., USA, 18 November 2021:
Evotec SE (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, MDAX/TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809; NASDAQ: EVO) and EQRx, a new type of pharmaceutical company committed to developing and delivering important new medicines to patients at radically lower prices, today announced a collaboration to design, discover and develop new therapeutic options for patients. The collaboration will help accelerate EQRx’s pipeline expansion efforts by leveraging Evotec’s unique data-driven, fully integrated R&D-platform, applied across different drug modalities and therapeutic areas. This approach aims to expedite the invention and development of novel drugs and helps ensure superior translation from research ideas to safe and efficacious medicines.

The collaboration will focus on multiple therapeutic targets in oncology and immunology. Under the terms of the agreement, EQRx and Evotec will collaborate on drug discovery, pre-clinical and clinical development. Evotec will lead drug discovery and pre-clinical development efforts, and EQRx will be responsible for clinical development, regulatory and commercialisation efforts. In addition to jointly funded research and development activities, Evotec will benefit from the potential commercial success of the assets developed within the partnership through a variable profit share mechanism. 

Dr Craig Johnstone, Chief Operating Officer of Evotec, commented: “EQRx’s ambitious and transformative mission to deliver important new therapies to patients at more affordable prices makes them an ideal partner for us. This exciting new partnership will expand the reach of our unique data-driven integrated R&D platform. We look forward to leveraging our combined knowledge, expertise and leading-edge technologies to advance new medicines against validated targets as rapidly as possible to make the biggest possible impact for patients.” 

“We continue to rapidly expand our early-stage development pipeline through access to innovative, next-generation drug discovery and engineering technologies,” said Carlos Garcia-Echeverria, PhD, chief of Rx creation at EQRx. “This collaboration with Evotec will enable us to engineer and develop precision medicines in immunology and oncology with high quality and speed of execution. We look forward to a productive collaboration to bring innovative, affordable and accessible treatment options to people in need.”  

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This announcement contains forward-looking statements concerning future events, including the proposed offering and listing of Evotec’s securities. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “potential,” “should,” “target,” “would” and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements include comments regarding completion of the offering. These forward-looking statements are based on the information available to, and the expectations and assumptions deemed reasonable by Evotec at the time these statements were made. No assurance can be given that such expectations will prove to have been correct. These statements involve known and unknown risks and are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates, which are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of Evotec. Evotec expressly disclaims any obligations or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in Evotec’s expectations with respect thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any statement is based.