Evotec earns US$40m in global licence deal with BMS

Under a potential US$4bn iPSC-based drug discovery partnership in neurodegeneration with Evotec SE, originally signed in 2016 through Celgene, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) has exercised its option to enter into another exclusive global licence agreement. The licence covers selected late-stage discovery programmes that were developed and progressed within the collaboration. In September 2021, BMS licenced EVT8683, after the small molecule targeting a cellular stress response that is key in several neurodegenerative diseases was cleared by the FDA to advance into a Phase I trial.

As the initial partnership proved highly productive in generating a pipeline of discovery to clinical-stage programmes, BMS and Evotec extended the partnership for an additional eight years in March 2023 including a new cell type for phenotypic screens of potential drug targets. Under the licence agreement, BMS has selected an undisclosed number of programmes that were rapidly developed using Evotec’s precision medicine platforms within the expanded collaboration. Under the new licence agreement, Evotec received a US$40m upfront payment and is eligible to earn milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties up to low double-digit percentages on product sales.

Evotec and Bristol Myers Squibb aim to identify disease-modifying treatments for a broad range of neurodegenerative diseases. Currently approved drugs only offer short-term management of patients’ symptoms and there is a significant unmet medical need for therapies that slow down or reverse disease progression in the field of neurodegenerative diseases.

Since 2018, Evotec and BMS also collaborate in developing targeted protein degraders.