Evotec Announces Three-Year Drug Discovery Collaboration

Hamburg, Germany - Evotec AG (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT; NASDAQ: EVTC) today announced the start of a research collaboration with Novartis to identify and develop novel small molecule therapeutics. The collaboration will run for an initial period of three years.

Evotec will apply its powerful drug discovery platform in combination with its extensive disease biology expertise to advance a drug discovery program against a target nominated by Novartis through discovery into the clinic. Furthermore, the agreement may be expanded by the addition of a second program.

Under the terms of the agreement, Evotec will progress the programs up to preclinical development and Novartis will then have the responsibility for all clinical development activities, manufacture and commercialization of the compounds. In return for Evotec’s contributions to the research program, Evotec is eligible for an upfront payment, research funding as well as preclinical and clinical milestone payments that could exceed $ 28 million. In addition, Novartis will pay royalties on sales of any marketed products resulting from the collaboration.

Jörn Aldag, President & Chief Executive Officer of Evotec, said: “We are delighted that Novartis has chosen to collaborate with Evotec. Novartis’ decision to work with us is further recognition of our track record in advancing compounds into the clinic. We are excited to be leveraging our drug discovery expertise with such a world class company.”

Forward-Looking Statements
Information set forth in this press release contains forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about our expectations and assumptions concerning regulatory, clinical and business strategies, the progress of our clinical development programs and timing of the results of our clinical trials, strategic collaborations and management’s plans, objectives and strategies. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. In particular, the risks and uncertainties include, among other things: risks that product candidates may fail in the clinic or may not be successfully marketed or manufactured; risks relating to our ability to advance the development of product candidates currently in the pipeline or in clinical trials; our inability to further identify, develop and achieve commercial success for new products and technologies; competing products may be more successful; our inability to interest potential partners in our technologies and products; our inability to achieve commercial success for our products and technologies; our inability to protect our intellectual property and the cost of enforcing or defending our intellectual property rights; our failure to comply with regulations relating to our products and product candidates, including FDA requirements; the risk that the FDA may interpret the results of our studies differently than we have; the risk that clinical trials may not result in marketable products; the risk that we may be unable to successfully secure regulatory approval of and market our drug candidates; and risks of new, changing and competitive technologies and regulations in the U.S. and internationally.
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