Evotec SE has entered into a multi-RNA target alliance with Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. to discover and develop small molecule therapeutics for highly attractive targets that are difficult to address via more conventional approaches.
 
The companies will jointly identify and develop small molecules targeting a range of RNA targets aligned with Takeda’s R&D areas. The collaboration will leverage Evotec’s RNA targeting platform to optimally identify promising RNA sequences to target with small molecule ligands that can be developed into potentially first-in-class therapeutics.
 
Evotec will receive research funding and will be eligible to receive discovery, preclinical, clinical, commercial and sales milestones of as much as $160 million per program. Evotec is also entitled to royalties on sales of any products resulting from the collaboration.
 
Dr. Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, said, “Many highly validated targets have proven to be intractable via conventional protein targeting approaches. For this reason, Evotec has been pioneering RNA targeting strategies and approaches for quite some time. We are very excited about the opportunity to collaborate with Takeda in this field as both companies share the vision to jointly develop small molecule therapeutics against high value RNA targets that will deliver long awaited therapeutics.”
 
“Takeda recognizes targeting RNA with small molecules as a promising new modality that has tremendous potential for much needed medicines for patients through modulating historically undruggable targets,” said Dr Larry Hamann, Head, Drug Discovery Sciences, Takeda. “We are excited to be working with Evotec and their impressive capabilities.”