Bristol Myers Squibb Exercises Option to Advance EVT8683, a Promising Neurodegenerative Disease Candidate from Evotec

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Recently, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) exercised an option to enter into a global exclusive license agreement with Evotec SE for EVT8683, stemming from a broader collaboration alliance between the two parties focused on neurodegenerative diseases. EVT8683 is a small molecule drug targeting a key cellular stress response, demonstrating significant potential across multiple neurodegenerative disease indications, and is now ready to advance into clinical development.

Under the terms of the license agreement, BMS will lead further development and commercialization. Evotec will receive a $20 million option payment and is eligible for up to $250 million in milestone payments, as well as royalties.

EVT8683 originated from phenotypic screening conducted by Evotec using its leading iPSC (induced pluripotent stem cell) drug discovery platform, and achieved IND approval in just five years. Under an option agreement signed with Celgene (now BMS) in 2016, BMS holds the right to option additional programs within this neurodegenerative disease collaboration.

In neurodegeneration, currently approved drugs provide only short-term symptomatic treatment, leaving a significant unmet medical need for innovative therapies capable of slowing and reversing disease progression.

The BMS-Evotec neurodegeneration collaboration is built upon Evotec’s industrialized iPSC platform, utilizing patient-derived disease models to discover and screen potential disease-modifying therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. Evotec’s iPSC platform enables high-throughput screening of iPSC-based human disease models, integrated with unbiased transcriptomic analysis. The seamless integration of the iPSC platform with Evotec’s validated small-molecule discovery and development capabilities enabled EVT8683 to advance from cell-based phenotypic screening to a successful IND filing in just five years.

Just 4.5 years after initiating the collaboration, BMS is now exercising its option to enter into a global license agreement for EVT8683. The EVT8683 program targets a key cellular stress response mechanism and has demonstrated highly compelling preclinical efficacy and safety, with the potential to deliver disease-modifying therapy for multiple devastating neurodegenerative diseases. Following successful compound optimization, Evotec's INDiGO platform was also utilized to enable seamless integration from project initiation to IND.

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are pluripotent stem cells that can be generated directly from somatic cells, holding significant promise in the medical field. Developing drug candidates in disease models established from patient-derived cells holds the promise of yielding a new generation of more effective therapeutics, thereby improving prognoses for patients with neurodegenerative diseases. Evotec has established an industrial-scale iPSC infrastructure, representing one of the largest and most complex iPSC platforms in the industry.

This August, BMS also exercised an option to license an immune system modulator from AI drug developer Exscientia, which is the first drug to emerge from the $1.2 billion collaboration signed between Celgene and Exscientia in 2019.

Analysts note that Celgene’s focus on oncology and inflammatory diseases appears to be generating a substantial number of open discovery deals, continuously feeding new assets into BMS’s pipeline.

References:

1.Bristol Myers greenlights neurodegenerative drug from Evotec

2.Evotec Announces Bristol Myers Squibb Opt-in of EVT8683 as the First Programme from iPSC-based Neurodegeneration Collaboration