Evotec Wins Key Contracts with Solvay Pharmaceuticals

Evotec AG has announced the signing of two contracts with Solvay Pharmaceuticals, a member of the Solvay group specialising in global pharmaceutical R&D, manufacturing, sales and marketing.

In the first agreement Evotec has been chosen as Solvay’s partner for fragment-based drug discovery. Solvay will access Evotec’s fragment-based screening platform and fragment library to identify fragment hits against a high priority target.

Evotec will produce 3-dimensional cocrystals of the fragment hits bound to the protein and then will use their track record in fragment-to-lead activities to further optimise the fragments.

Evotec has validated their fragment-based drug discovery platform against various protein targets. Key financial terms include an access fee payable by Solvay for accessing Evotec’s fragment-based screening technology.

The second agreement extends an existing library synthesis contract for a further twelve months from 1 January 2007. Evotec has been synthesizing and supplying chemical libraries to Solvay, for screening against targets in its drug discovery programmes, since January 2001.

“Evotec is delighted that Solvay has chosen to further extend our original agreement. In addition we are looking forward to collaborating with them on the new fragment-based drug discovery programme. We are confident that both these agreements will enable us to continue making significant contributions to Solvay’s drug discovery programmes,” said Dr Mark Ashton, Executive Vice President Business Development Services at Evotec.