Yahoo Finance Evotec (EVO) Inks Drug Discovery Collaboration Deal With J&J
Evotec SE EVO announced that it has entered into a drug discovery collaboration deal with Janssen Pharmaceutical NV, a wholly owned subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson JNJ.
According to the deal, Evotec’s innovative TargetAlloMod platforms will be used to develop and discover first-in-class novel mode of action therapeutic candidates to provide innovative treatment options for patients.
The above agreement was facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation.
Evotec and Janssen will together screen the identified targets and collaborate with hit identification and lead optimization for attractive chemical assets by leveraging Evotec’s end-to-end integrated drug discovery and development platform.
Evotec will get research funding from J&J’s Janssen. The company is also eligible to receive milestone payments of around € 210 million per project as well as tiered royalties if a product is commercialized from the above collaboration.
Shares of Evotec lost 3.8% on Tuesday as investors probably jeered the news. The stock has plunged 50.8% so far this year compared with the industry’s decrease of 28.7%.
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The above partnership deal will leverage Evotec’s proprietary platform capabilities in the field of protein homeostasis.
In a separate press release, Evotec’s partner, Exscientia EXAI, announced top-line data from an early-stage study evaluating its highly selective A2A receptor antagonist, EXS-21546, in healthy volunteers.
EXS-21546 is co-invented and developed by Exscientia and Evotec.
Data from the phase Ia healthy volunteer study confirmed that EXS-21546 is a highly potent and selective A2AR antagonist with low central nervous system or CNS exposure.
The phase Ia study was a three-part dose-finding study that evaluated the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of single ascending doses and multiple ascending doses of EXS-21546.
One primary goal of the study was to determine the optimal starting dose of EXS-21546 for the phase Ib/II study in cancer patients.
Supported by these data, Exscientia plans to initiate a phase Ib/II study on EXS-21546 in patients with solid tumors exhibiting high adenosine signatures in the second half of 2022.
Zacks Rank & Stock to Consider
Evotec currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A better-ranked stock in the same sector is Galmed Pharmaceuticals Ltd. GLMD, which has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Galmed Pharmaceuticals’ loss per share has narrowed 37.9% for 2022 and 53.8% for 2023 in the past 60 days.
Earnings of Galmed Pharmaceuticals have surpassed estimates in each of the trailing three quarters. GLMD delivered an earnings surprise of 23.09%, on average.
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