Evotec in deal with Hypha Discovery to enhance drug discovery platform

2 April 2010

Evotec AG (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, TecDAX) has signed an agreement with Hypha Discovery Ltd that gives its screening clients access to Hypha’s MycoDiverse natural product collection for use as part of its hit-and-lead services to identify medicinal compounds.

Furthermore, following screening, Evotec could leverage its capabilities and expertise in natural product chemistry and medicinal chemistry to optimise promising hit compounds.

The MycoDiverse collection, which is unexploited in most therapeutic areas, contains samples of high chemical novelty. This, allied with Evotec’s recognised expertise and proprietary technologies in assay development, screening and medicinal chemistry, creates a comprehensive platform for lead generation via natural product screening.

Dr Liam Evans, Chief Executive Officer of Hypha Discovery stated: “Evotec is a world-leading provider of high throughput screening services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and as such this strategic partnership provides new and exciting opportunities to find novel drug leads resulting from our breakthrough fungal fermentation technology.”

Dr Mark Ashton, Executive Vice President, Business Development of Evotec commented: “We are continually looking at ways to enhance Evotec’s offering to its customers. We see access to Hypha’s high quality natural product collection as a logical step towards offering our customers further choices for lead identification. We feel that our ability to offer the screening of natural products is complementary to also providing access to our high quality, small molecule library.”

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