In the course of the collaboration, Evotec will develop assays, including those designed for high content screening, against high priority biological targets thought to be of importance in treating Huntington’s disease provided by CHDI and the High Q Foundation.
Working with medicinal chemists at CHDI, Evotec will apply its own medicinal chemistry and parallel synthesis skills to synthesise libraries of novel small molecule compounds. Evotec will also use its proprietary platform to screen these compounds and Evotec’s own library to identify compounds with biological activity.
Since March 2006, Evotec and CHDI have signed four agreements covering medicinal chemistry, assay development and medium-throughput screening, ultra-high-throughput screening and library synthesis and management services. These contracts cover most of Evotec’s integrated discovery offering.
With access to these resources, CHDI has tools in place to rapidly discover novel drugs against Huntington’s disease targets and further optimize them to the point of clinical development.
Both companies envisage expanding the agreements to accommodate further discovery capabilities of Evotec as and when required.