Evotec, CHDI extend effort to fight Huntington's disease

Evotec AG on Wednesday announced that CHDI Foundation Inc. has extended and expanded its collaboration with Evotec through August 2018.

CHDI will fund 55 full-time scientists at Evotec in a collaboration that seeks new treatments for Huntington’s disease, an inherited neurodegenerative disorder. They will use additional technologies, capabilities and capacities at Evotec’s facilities in Toulouse, France, and Princeton, New Jersey.

“Evotec represents one of our largest and longest-standing relationships and continues to be an important strategic partner in our search for meaningful therapies for Huntington’s disease families,” Robert Pacifici, chief scientific officer at CHDI, said. “Their integrated drug discovery capabilities are helping us discover novel targets and to advance drug candidates toward the clinic and we look forward to continuing to work with Evotec over the coming years.”

The collaboration began in 2006 and has grown to fully use Evotec’s integrated neuroscience platform. The extension of this collaboration confirms Evotec’s investment in new technologies and capabilities in support of encouraging innovative drug discovery collaborations.

“We are delighted to continue our collaboration with CHDI and this extension clearly illustrates that CHDI values our commitment to expanding both our capabilities and capacity,” Evoted Chief Operations Officer Mario Polywka said. “We look forward to continuing working closely with our colleagues at CHDI to rapidly discover novel drugs against Huntington’s disease targets.”