Evotec SE announced further progress of the company’s strategic partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb relating to building a molecular glue-based pipeline, triggering a $75 million performance-based and program-based milestone payment to Evotec.
 
Initiated in 2018, the partnership combines Evotec’s high-performance multi-omics screening and analytics capabilities with Bristol Myers Squibb’s library of cereblon E3 ligase modulators (CELMoDs). Expanded in 2022, the partnership continues to identify novel molecular glue degraders, targeting high-value targets in the field of oncology and beyond. 
 
Dr. Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, said, “Bristol Myers Squibb is leading the industry in the field of molecular glue degraders, which is clearly one of the most exciting emerging therapeutic modalities. Through our highly systematic and industrialized PanOmics-based approach the pipeline of molecular degraders addressing high value targets keeps growing and maturing. The breadth and the depth of the pipeline is designed to deliver multiple first-in-class products into the market. We are well on track to deliver on our plans.”
 
Conventional small molecule therapeutics work via a drug-induced interference with a protein activity. This limitation to agonistic or antagonistic functions renders about 90% of proteins “undruggable”. Also, conventional small molecules only work while they are actively binding to the receptor, which typically requires a treatment regimen consisting of one or even several carefully dosed medications every day.
 
Molecular glue degraders are compounds that induce interactions between an E3 ubiquitin ligase and a molecular target. Through this mechanism of action molecular glues are not restricted to the agonistic/antagonistic features of a protein, thus massively expanding the range of the druggable proteome. Also, the molecular glue itself is not degraded in the process and can trigger the degradation process several times over, thus leading to longer-lasting therapeutic effects.
 
Evotec applies high-end proteomics and transcriptomics at industrial scale to profile and select promising drug candidates based on comprehensive cell biological profiles.