Bristol Myers Squibb exercises option to extend targeted protein degradation partnership with Evotec
Evotec SE announced that Bristol Myers Squibb has decided to exercise their option to extend its partnership with Evotec in the field of targeted protein degradation. Evotec and Bristol Myers Squibb (the successor in interest to Celgene) initiated this strategic drug discovery and development partnership in 2018 with the goal to identify first-in-class drug candidates initially focusing on solid tumours.
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The partnership leverages Evotec’s proprietary PanOmics platform, which combines enhanced throughput proteomics, high throughput transcriptomics and cell imaging with the integrated data analysis platform PanHunter. Together with Evotec’s deep insights into the disease biology of oncology, the approach has generated a pipeline of novel first-in-class targeted protein degradation projects, two of which have transitioned successfully into lead optimisation after completing respective validation processes on Evotec’s platforms.
The high quality of the data and the number of promising drug targets identified using Evotec’s PanOmics and PanHunter platforms has led to the early extension of the partnership. The extension triggers an undisclosed payment to Evotec to further expand screening efforts and thus continue to grow the pipeline.
Dr Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, said: “Targeted protein degradation is an emerging new therapeutic modality with enormous potential to reach not only proven drug targets through a novel mechanism of action, but also traditionally undruggable targets and thus discover and develop first-in-class, disease-modifying therapeutics. The success of our collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb to date has led to Bristol Myers Squibb’s decision to expand and extend this collaboration. We are honoured and extremely proud to collaborate with the industry-leading company in the field of protein homeostasis and are very much looking forward to continue our efforts at an accelerated pace.”
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