Celgene and Evotec ink third strategic partnership

German biotech Evotec (EVT: Xetra) has entered into a third long-term strategic drug discovery and development partnership with Celgene (Nasdaq: CELG), this one in the field of targeted protein degradation.

In this collaboration, Evotec and Celgene will leverage Evotec's Panomics platform in order to identify drug targets which are traditionally difficult to track. Evotec's Panomics platform applies in particular high-end proteomics and transcriptomics at industrial scale to profile and select promising drug candidates on the basis of comprehensive cell biological profiles. Evotec's Panomics platform also includes an integrated data analytics platform, ‘PanHunter’, which facilitates the analysis and interpretation of large 'omics' data sets.

The collaboration will leverage the state-of-the-art proteomics expertise of Evotec scientists at the sites in Munich, Germany, and Toulouse, France. Under the terms of the agreement, Evotec will receive an undisclosed upfront payment as well as significant milestone-based payments and tiered potentially double-digit royalties on each licensed program. Celgene holds exclusive rights for all programs arising from this collaboration.

Dr Cord Dohrmann, chief scientific officer of Evotec, commented: "We are very excited to enter into this third partnership with Celgene, opening opportunities to expand beyond neurodegeneration and oncology. Addressing traditionally undrugable targets via targeted protein degradation is a highly attractive and promising approach which has not been explored systematically."

Previous collaborations

In May this year, Evotec Celgene entered into a long-term strategic drug discovery and development partnership to identify new therapeutics in oncology, which included an upfront payment of $65 million to Evotec.