- Support from the Collaboration Lead (CL) in identifying the most suitable projects and developing a drug discovery workplace
- Funding of $1-4m USD per project
- Drug discovery and development expertise
- Resources to design a drug discovery program and identify a therapeutic candidate
- Access to platforms for a range of therapeutic modalities
- Disease area expertise to achieve pre-clinical proof of concept with your idea
- Regulatory and commercial advice
We work closely with the Principal Investigator (PI) to design a Discovery Award proposal that is a collaborative work and funding plan to advance your drug discovery idea. Selected projects are initially funded with a Discovery Award to reach key preclinical value-inflection points. After reaching these key preclinical milestones projects are eligible to be granted additional funding up to the IND application stage and Novo Nordisk has the option to in-license the technology and associated intellectual property (IP). As an alternative to in-licensing, Novo Nordisk, Evotec and the originating academic institution may engage in the creation of a new start-up company to further pursue the technology.
Some examples of projects that are likely to be in scope and receive support include:
Target validation – Using tool compounds and antibodies from the literature or patents to demonstrate target engagement in primary cells and/or in vivo models with a disease relevant readout.
Screening and hit identification – Screening with biochemical or functional response readouts using Evotec’s proprietary high-throughput screening technologies or other commercial platforms.
Medicinal chemistry – Designing, synthesizing and scaling up chemical compounds to test in relevant biological systems and to develop them further into safe and efficacious treatments while securing a route to novel Intellectual Property (IP).
Antibody development – Screening for novel antibodies and subsequent optimization/humanization. Antibodies can then be applied to disease relevant in vitro and in vivo assays to demonstrate mechanism-of-action and target validation.
RNA, cell and gene therapy – Developing alternative therapeutic formats including antisense RNA to modulate protein expression levels, cell therapy to replace malfunctioning tissue, or gene therapy to restore activity of a gene or add additional functionality.
Structural biology – Using X-ray crystallography, NMR and other biophysical methods to understand the mechanism of binding and aid in drug optimization.
In vitro validation – Characterizing the potency, selectivity and the functional effects of small molecule or antibody candidates in translational assays using primary cells from rodents, primates or humans and iPSC models.
In vivo validation – Using Evotec’s comprehensive range of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK) assays to optimize and test compounds in a suite of disease relevant in vivo models.