Evotec and Debiopharm to collaborate on development of new cancer treatment
The two companies will share discovery and development efforts
Evotec is to collaborate with Debiopharm Group of Lausanne, Switzerland to identify and develop compounds to treat a variety of cancers.
The company will lead the discovery and pre-clinical development, while Debiopharm will manage clinical development.
The Hamburg, Germany-based company will receive R&D funding and 'high double-digit' payments, plus royalties on sales of any resulting commercial products.
Evotec will apply a range of sophisticated drug discovery tools including state-of-the-art mass spectrometry and structure-based drug design for rapid and efficient development of promising leads. Debiopharm has experience of taking promising early-stage biological or small molecule drug candidates from pre-clinical to clinical development phase I, II and III, including subsequent out-licensing to pharmaceutical partners for sales and marketing.
Dr Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, said: 'We are confident that we will be able to position highly competitive compounds in this field that hold great potential for difficult to treat cancers.'
Andrés McAllister, Chief Scientific Officer at Debiopharm International added: 'This is a fine example of how drug discovery and development will be in the future: a mixture of complementarities looking to bring to a defined population of patients a drug that will change the outcome of disease.'
Thierry Mauvernay, Delegate of the Board of Debiopharm Group, also commented: 'This R&D programme targeting cancers with known genetic alterations is a whole part of our strategy for personalised medicines.'