Evotec receives milestone payment from Ono

Further, both the companies have also decided to expand the term of their drug discovery and research agreement to April 2012.

The companies aim to generate new chemical entities, which will have the potential to become new drug candidates.

Under the agreement Ono will be responsible for the development and commercialization of the compounds generated by Evotec.

Ono Research Headquarters managing director Kazuhito Kawabata said they are very pleased to achieve the research milestone and progress into lead optimisation with a project.

"We are confident that multiple preclinical candidates will be identified in near future," Kawabata said.