Global biopharmaceutical company Evotec SE has entered a drug discovery collaboration with Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

Evotec’s drug discovery platform TargetAlloMod will be evaluated to discover first-in-class novel mode of action therapeutic candidates. Under the agreement, Evotec and Janssen will jointly conduct screens on the identified targets and collaborate with hit identification and lead optimisation of the most promising chemical assets, leveraging the TargetAlloMod platform. Evotec describes its platform as a ‘Data-driven R&D Autobahn to Cures’.

Evotec Chief Scientific Officer, Dr Cord Dohrmann, commented: ‘We are very proud to enter into this collaboration to explore unique approaches to high potential cell surface drug targets with novel therapeutic modalities and to deliver and make innovative therapeutic options available to patients.’

The agreement was facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation. Besides research funding, Evotec is entitled to success-based research and commercial milestones up to approximately €210 million per project as well as tiered royalties on products resulting from this collaboration.

The TargetAlloMod platform comprises a suite of proprietary assay principles and computational tools to assess and screen extracellular receptor targets for shedding and the induction of shedding by small molecule allosteric modulators. Evotec says this platform has broad applicability across many therapeutic areas.

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