Evotec and Centogene Expand Collaboration into Gaucher Disease

• CENTOGENE AND EVOTEC INTEND TO IDENTIFY NOVEL DISEASE-MODIFYING TARGETS
• FIRST TARGET SELECTED FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A THERAPEUTIC CANDIDATE
• CENTOGENE CONTRIBUTES ACCESS TO ITS GLOBAL PROPRIETARY RARE DISEASE PLATFORM, EVOTEC WILL LEVERAGE ITS PROPRIETARY IPSC PLATFORM AND DRUG DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT EXPERTISE

HAMBURG and ROSTOCK, GERMANY / ACCESSWIRE / August 20, 2020 / Evotec SE (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, MDAX/TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809) and CENTOGENE N.V. (Nasdaq:CNTG), a commercial-stage company focused on rare diseases that transforms real-world clinical and genetic data into actionable information for patients, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies, today announced that the companies have expanded their existing drug discovery partnership related to the protein target glucocerebrosidase (“GBA”) with a focus on Gaucher disease, a genetic and relatively common lysosomal storage disorder. The parties intend to develop a treatment option for the majority of patients whereas currently available treatments are individualised for each patient depending on the type of Gaucher disease, focusing on symptomatic relief.

Under the terms of the expanded agreement, CENTOGENE and Evotec will work together to research, discover, and develop therapeutic options related to the deficiency of the protein GBA, a gene linked to Gaucher disease. The collaboration brings together Evotec’s leading induced pluripotent stem cell (“iPSC”) platform and broad drug discovery and development capabilities with CENTOGENE’s global proprietary rare disease platform, including iPSC lines, to address the needs of this orphan drug indication. The collaboration builds on the partnership Evotec and CENTOGENE entered in 2018 with the goal to discover and develop novel small molecules in rare hereditary metabolic diseases.

Dr Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, commented: “The partnership with CENTOGENE supports and complements our patient-centric drug discovery approach in Gaucher disease. We highly value CENTOGENE’s biomarker expertise and real-world data-based global proprietary rare disease platform, which fits perfectly to our iPSC-based drug discovery platform. The combination should help identify disease-modifying treatments for this underserved patient population.”

Prof. Arndt Rolfs, CEO of CENTOGENE, said: “Our collaboration with Evotec further underlines CENTOGENE’s commitment to driving biomarker discoveries and accelerating orphan drug by leveraging our global expertise in rare hereditary diseases. In particular, we are able to draw on over 20 years of knowledge and research of Gaucher disease. By continuing our work alongside Evotec, we will accelerate transformational medical solutions in the rare disease field.”

ABOUT CENTOGENE
CENTOGENE engages in diagnosis and research around rare diseases transforming real-world clinical and genetic data into actionable information for patients, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies. Our goal is to bring rationality to treatment decisions and to accelerate the development of new orphan drugs by using our extensive rare disease knowledge, including epidemiological and clinical data, as well as innovative biomarkers. CENTOGENE has developed a global proprietary rare disease platform based on our real-world data repository with approximately 3.0 billion weighted data points from over 530,000 patients representing over 120 different countries as of March 31, 2020.

The Company’s platform includes epidemiologic, phenotypic, and genetic data that reflects a global population, and also a biobank of these patients’ blood samples. CENTOGENE believes this represents the only platform that comprehensively analyzes multi-level data to improve the understanding of rare hereditary diseases, which can aid in the identification of patients and improve our pharmaceutical partners’ ability to bring orphan drugs to the market. As of March 31, 2020, the Company collaborated with 39 pharmaceutical partners covering over 45 different rare diseases.

ABOUT EVOTEC SE
Evotec is a drug discovery alliance and development partnership company focused on rapidly progressing innovative product approaches with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academics, patient advocacy groups and venture capitalists. We operate worldwide and our more than 3,300 employees provide the highest quality stand-alone and integrated drug discovery and development solutions. We cover all activities from target-to-clinic to meet the industry’s need for innovation and efficiency in drug discovery and development (EVT Execute). The Company has established a unique position by assembling top-class scientific experts and integrating state-of-the-art technologies as well as substantial experience and expertise in key therapeutic areas including neuronal diseases, diabetes and complications of diabetes, pain and inflammation, oncology, infectious diseases, respiratory diseases, fibrosis, rare diseases and women’s health. On this basis, Evotec has built a broad and deep pipeline of approx. 100 co-owned product opportunities at clinical, pre-clinical and discovery stages (EVT Innovate). Evotec has established multiple long-term alliances with partners including Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, CHDI, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Sanofi, Takeda, UCB and others. For additional information please go to www.evotec.com and follow us on Twitter @Evotec.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
Information set forth in this press release contains forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements contained herein represent the judgement of Evotec as of the date of this press release. Such forward-looking 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. 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.

Media Contact Evotec SE:
Gabriele Hansen, SVP Head of Global Communications & Marketing, Phone: +49.(0)40.56081-255, gabriele.hansen@evotec.com

IR Contact Evotec SE:
Volker Braun, SVP Head of Global Investor Relations & ESG, Phone: +49.(0)40.56081-775, volker.braun@evotec.com

SOURCE: Evotec AG via EQS Newswire

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