Boehringer expands drug discovery deal with Evotec

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, Jan. 17 - Evotec AG announced Tuesday that it has significantly expanded the drug discovery collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim that began in September 2004, which effectively doubles the already sizable program.

The collaboration, which was originally projected to end in August 2007, was extended to the end of 2008, according to a company news release.

The aim of the collaboration is to identify preclinical development candidates suitable for future selection as drug candidates for clinical testing, officials said.

While the original contract was exclusively targeted at therapeutics acting on G-protein coupled receptors, officials said the extension also includes targets from different target classes, including ion channels and enzymes.

Boehringer said it will have the ownership and global responsibility for all clinical development activities, manufacture and commercialization of the compounds identified in the collaboration.

As compensation for Evotec's contributions to the program, Evotec will receive ongoing research payments from Boehringer, officials said.

Boehringer said it also will pay Evotec based on preclinical and clinical milestones, as well as royalties on drugs discovered in the collaboration.

The first project milestone was successfully announced in June 2005, less than one year after the start of this partnership, officials said.

"We are very pleased with the progress we have achieved in our collaboration with Evotec to date.

We appreciate the drug discovery performance with the first milestone achieved as well as the positive spirit in the team. This has led us to extend and expand our relationship further," Mikael Dolsten, head of corporation division pharma research/discovery for Boehringer, said in the release.

Evotec is a Hamburg, Germany, pharmaceutical company with a focus on small-molecule drugs.

Based in Ingelheim, Germany, the Boehringer Ingelheim group is one of the world's 20 leading pharmaceutical companies. It develops, manufactures and markets novel therapeutic products for human and veterinary medicine.

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