Evotec achieves milestone in its neurodegeneration collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb

Evotec receive a US$ 6 m payment

05-Jan-2021 - Germany

Evotec SE announced that the Company has received a US$ 6 m payment from Bristol Myers Squibb Company within the companies’ iPSC-based neuroscience partnership. The payment follows Bristol Myers Squibb’s decision to add another drug discovery project to the partnership’s portfolio.

Evotec and Bristol Myers Squibb (the successor in interest to Celgene) initiated the collaboration in 2016 to identify disease-modifying treatments for a broad range of neurodegenerative diseases. Currently approved drugs only offer short-term management of patients’ symptoms and there is a huge unmet medical need for therapies that slow down or reverse disease progression in the field of neurodegenerative diseases.

This collaboration pursues an innovative approach to the discovery and development of novel medicines by leveraging several of Evotec’s unique technology platforms in conjunction with the human iPSC-based platform, which is one of the largest and most sophisticated platforms in the industry. The partnership between Bristol Myers Squibb and Evotec has already found several access points into neurodegenerative diseases and has to-date delivered a broad portfolio targeting key disease mechanisms in neurodegeneration.

Dr Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, commented: “We are very excited about this most recent expansion of our joint project portfolio which further validates our iPSC-based approach within our strategic neuroscience partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb. Our partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb is driven by the firm belief that iPSC-based approaches will deliver more disease-relevant drug candidates which will have a better chance to deliver safe and effective drugs than traditional approaches.”

The milestone was achieved before the end of 2020.

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/1169300/evotec-achieves-milestone-in-its-neurodegeneration-collaboration-with-bristol-myers-squibb.html