German biotech firms Indivumed and Evotec announced yesterday they have entered a research collaboration aimed at developing a precision treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Terms of deal were not disclosed.
The newest collaboration parallels a similar program the two companies kicked off in April focused on developing therapeutics for colorectal cancer (CRC), which the companies said has already yielded several potential drug targets.
“We are excited to add this new discovery program to our successful precision medicine collaboration with Indivumed,” said Dr. Cord Dohrmann, chief scientific officer of Evotec in a press release. “We are confident that combining the highly complementary strengths of our companies will generate innovative drug candidates for clearly defined patient populations within non-small cell lung cancer who urgently need effective treatments.”
Like the CRC collaboration, both companies will apply their core technologies in combination with the hopes of developing a first-in-class therapeutic for NSCLC. Evotec will use its bioinformatics platform PanHunter, along with its small molecule and antibody discovery platforms, in concert with Indivumed’s multi-omics cancer database called IndivuType and the company’s advanced analytical and AI technologies.
Both companies will jointly invest in data analysis, target identification, validation and drug discovery, while Evotec will be responsible for subsequent partnering of the programs and the platform.
PanHunter is an integrated data analytics platform designed to facilitate the analysis and interpretation of large ‘omics’ data sets. IndivuType supports the identification and validation of new molecular drug targets and biomarkers, patient stratification and cohort design for clinical trials, as well as multiple molecular aspects in basic and clinical research.
“The fast and successful development of our previous joint colorectal cancer programme has led to this new agreement, less than twelve months after the first one. Together we will discover and develop novel drugs for the treatment of NSCLC, using as a starting point our IndivuType multi-omics platform,” noted Prof. Dr. Hartmut Juhl, CEO of Indivumed.
