HAMBURG, Germany, Sept. 2, 2008 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Evotec AG (Frankfurt:EVT) (Nasdaq:EVTC) today announced that a third milestone has been successfully achieved in their collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim. Under the terms of the drug discovery contract, Evotec will receive a milestone payment from Boehringer Ingelheim which was granted for the selection of an advanced compound for profiling to enable the start of preclinical development.
Further projects within the multi-target collaboration are progressing and are on track to achieve additional project milestones for which Evotec is entitled to receive additional payments from Boehringer Ingelheim. Furthermore, the contract provides substantial long-term upside through potential payments for successful milestone achievements during clinical development and royalties when new drugs reach the market. Further financial details of the payment were not disclosed.
Dr John Kemp, Chief Research and Development Officer at Evotec, commented: "We are proud to have achieved this important milestone in one of our projects with Boehringer Ingelheim. This further demonstrates our capabilities to discover novel drugs based on our drug discovery expertise. Our collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim is progressing very well and we are looking forward to continued success."
About Evotec AG
Evotec is a leader in the discovery and development of novel small molecule drugs. Both through its own discovery programs and through research collaborations, it is generating the highest quality research results to its partners in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. In proprietary projects, Evotec specializes in finding new treatments for diseases of the Central Nervous System. Evotec has three programs in clinical development: EVT 201, a partial positive allosteric modulator (pPAM) of the GABAA receptor complex for the treatment of insomnia, EVT 101, a subtype selective NMDA receptor antagonist for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and/or pain, and EVT 302, a MAO-B inhibitor in development for smoking cessation. Evotec's proprietary preclinical research programs focus on the purinergic receptors, P2X3 and P2X7, for the potential treatment of pain and inflammatory diseases. In addition, Evotec has worldwide collaboration and license agreements with Pfizer to research, develop and commercialize small molecule vanilloid receptor (VR1) antagonists. For additional information please go to www.evotec.com
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.
The list of risks above is not exhaustive. Our Annual Report on Form 20-F, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other documents filed with, or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission, contain additional factors that could impact our businesses and financial performance. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.