Shares in Evotec, which could receive milestone payments of more than E100 million as a result of the collaboration, rose as much as 15% after the news of the alliance broke.
The companies will jointly progress projects up to clinical development, at which stage Roche will have exclusive rights to the development of the drug candidates.
“This collaboration capitalizes on Evotec’s and Roche’s complementary drug discovery capabilities and underlines the value of our drug discovery platform and CNS expertise,” said Dr John Kemp, executive vice president of R&D at Evotec.
“We have been working with Roche for many years in an atmosphere of mutual respect – in service agreements and in-licensing of CNS drugs – and are looking forward to now partnering one of our CNS discovery projects into this joint effort.”
Roche currently holds more than 50 partnerships with companies worldwide. In 2005, the healthcare group entered into nine partnerships to jointly develop products.