Evotec and CHDI ally to fight Huntington Disease

Published: 11-Aug-2006

CHDI, a not-for-profit organisation that uses biotechnology to find therapies for Huntington Disease (HD), has struck a strategic partnership with Evotec to advance its drug discovery programs.


CHDI, a not-for-profit organisation that uses biotechnology to find therapies for Huntington Disease (HD), has struck a strategic partnership with Evotec to advance its drug discovery programs.

Four agreements signed between CHDI and Evotec since March 2006 cover medicinal chemistry, assay development and medium-throughput screening (MTS), ultra-high-throughput screening (uHTS), and library synthesis and management services.

With the extra resources that Evotec will provide, CHDI hopes to rapidly discover novel drugs against HD targets and optimise for clinical development. Working with medicinal chemists at CHDI, Evotec will apply its own medicinal chemistry and parallel synthesis skills to synthesise libraries of novel small molecule compounds.

HD is a familial disease, passed through genetic mutation. It is estimated that 1 in 10,000 persons has the HD gene, and the average survival time after onset is 15-20 years. At present, medical science has no way of stopping or reversing the course of HD.

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