Roche to Pay Evotec $10 Million for Right to Experimental Alzheimer’s Drug
Roche Holding AG (ROG) will pay Evotec AG (EVT) $10 million for the right to develop Evotec’s EVT 302 compound for Alzheimer’s disease.
Evotec may receive as much as another $820 million if development and sales goals are met, as well as double-digit royalties, the Hamburg-based company said in a statement today. Basel, Switzerland-based Roche will pay for clinical development, manufacturing and commercialization, Evotec said.
The compound targets monoamine oxidase type B, or MAO-B, an enzyme that breaks down dopamine in the brain and contributes to the production of free radicals, which may contribute to the spread of the disease, Evotec said.
“We have a disease out there which pharma has been been trying for decades to understand and so far it has not figured it out,” Werner Lanthaler, chief executive officer of Evotec, said in a phone interview today.
It would have cost Evotec “hundreds of millions of euros” to conduct clinical trials, Lanthaler said. Partnering with Roche made sense because the compound may one day be used in combination with other treatments developed by Roche to attack the disease, he said.
“We are wise not to go into this alone because it would be impossible as a small biotech,” he said.
Alzheimer’s affects about 35 million patients worldwide and the cause hasn’t been identified. Lanthaler said a combination of drugs may be needed to slow or stop the disease, where protein plaques appear in the brain and lead to the death of brain cells.
The compound had been licensed to Evotec by Roche in 2006 and was tested unsuccessfully in smoking cessation.
Evotec raised its revenue forecast. It now expects 77 million euros ($108.5 million) to 79 million euros, compared with 70 million euros to 72 million euros previously and targets liquidity at year-end of more than 60 million euros.
To contact the reporter on this story: Allison Connolly in Frankfurt at aconnolly4@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Phil Serafino at pserafino@bloomberg.net.
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