BRIEF—Two new stem cell programs in Evotec-BMS collab

Two new program designations have been agreed as part of an ongoing neuroscience collaboration between Hamburg’s Evotec and New York’s Bristol Myers Squibb, triggering payments of $40 million to the German firm.

Evotec said these target-based designations would “bolster the growing pipeline and are expected to follow EVT8683, which Bristol Myers Squibb opted to license after the successful filing of an IND application with the FDA.”

Initiated in 2016, the collaboration is focused on identifying disease-modifying treatments for a broad range of neurodegenerative diseases, using Evotec's industrialised induced pluripotent stem cell platform, using patient-derived disease models.

Evotec chief scientific officer Cord Dohrmann said: "Our collaboration with BMS continues to be highly productive.”

He added: “These achievements are a testimony of the great team spirit between Bristol Myers Squibb and Evotec colleagues that enabled us to advance highly challenging programmes to key value inflection points."