Evotec AG has signed a mulit-component strategic alliance over the next five years with Sanofi. The transaction is expected to close on March 31, 2015. This successfully concludes the exclusive negotiations for a r multi-component strategic collaboration which the two companies entered in December 2014.

The collaboration will result in a minimum guaranteed commitment from Sanofi to Evotec of EUR 250 million, including more than EUR 40 million in upfront cash payment. The five-year agreement includes initiatives with both of Evotec’s two business segments (EVT Execute and EVT Innovate).

Evotec will expand itscapabilities in drug discovery by integrating a facility of approx. 20,000 square meters and more than 200 employees in Toulouse, France. Evotec will integrate the Toulouse capacities into its global drug discovery infrastructure and offering. The expanded capabilities will serve to support collaborative research in drug discovery from screening to identification of pre-clinical candidates with Evotec’s Pharma, biotech, venture capital and academic partners. Evotec will provide a broad range of long-term drug discovery services to Sanofi. This agreement is centered on the core small-molecule discovery platforms in Toulouse for the period of the contract over the next five years. In addition, Evotec will assume management of Sanofi’s global screening compound library.

Both companies will combine their libraries and offer them for screening to Evotec’s business partners. This creates a library of approximately. 1,700,000 compounds available to screen. The agreement defines the conditions under which Evotec and Sanofi intend to jointly progress a portfolio of primarily oncology related projects, including five advanced, pre-clinical projects and further discovery-stage assets, to investitgational new drug status or other value inflection points before partnering them. . In a joint effort, Evotec will scout and incubate projects generated in France into the pipeline of Evotec’s Cure X/ Target X strategy.

Source: Evotec