Boehringer Ingelheim pays milestone fee to Evotec

Boehringer Ingelheim has provided a milestone payment to partner Evotec after the progression of their collaboratively-developed oncology project to the next stage.

A fee of two million euros (1.67 million pounds) has been triggered under the terms of the research alliance after the cancer treatment programme was successfully advanced to the lead optimisation phase.

Evotec and Boehringer Ingelheim have been working jointly to identify and develop new drug candidates for various applications since 2004, with inflammation, cardiometabolic and respiratory diseases among the target research areas.

This agreement was subsequently expanded in 2009 to include oncology therapies, as well as extending the duration of the partnership by a further four years.

Dr Mario Polywka, chief operating officer of Evotec, said: "This is the eleventh milestone achieved as part of this alliance with Boehringer Ingelheim and the second against an oncology target."

Last week, Boehringer Ingelheim signed a new collaboration agreement with Lilly that will see the two companies ally on the development and commercialisation of new diabetes drugs.