Sanofi and Evotec launch drug discovery PPP

Under the programme dubbed Lab 31, Sanofi will provide funds that will be used to validate and optimise drug candidates of academic groups in discovery stage on Evotec’s industrial screening and drug discovery platforms. Over the next three years, the companies will focus on the generation and advancement of multiple small molecule programmes through the lead optimisation. For each project, Sanofi has the option to assume development responsibility upon the achievement of pre-agreed milestone criteria. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Similar public-private partnerships called BRIDGES have been pushed forward by Evotec since 2016 to expand the company's portfolio of partnerships in drug development. According to the Hamburg-headquartered CRO, BRIDGEs are initiatives designed to accelerate multiple translational projects across therapeutic areas to pre-clinical proof-of-concept or other major value inflection points. The first BRIDGE, LAB282, was set up with the University of Oxford and Oxford Sciences Innovation, followed by LAB150 in Toronto, Canada, with MaRS Innovation and its 15 affiliated hospitals and universities and LAB591 together with Arix Bioscience and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Dr Werner Lanthaler, Chief Executive Officer of Evotec, said: "This BRIDGE announced today is another strategic expansion of Evotec's relationship with Sanofi. Supporting academic initiatives globally through BRIDGEs is designed to enable Evotec to validate translational ideas more efficiently.

Just this year, Sanofi outsourced its early antibiotics development programmes and facility to Evotec. LAB31 is an expansion to this partnership into other medical fields.