Evotec wins grant to take H3 receptor antagonist drug into clinical trials

3 June 2010

Hamburg-based Evotec AG has won funding of up to €1.5 million from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to advance its H3 receptor antagonist drug programme into clinical trials.

Using its central nervous system (CNS) expertise coupled with its world leading discovery platform Evotec has successfully identified and optimised H3 receptor antagonists through to preclinical development. This grant will now provide external funding for Evotec to advance the programme through Phase I clinical studies.

The histamine H3 receptor is a drug target of high interest because of evidence that blocking this receptor in the brain can improve cognition, alertness and attention. H3 receptor antagonists therefore have the potential to become an important new class of therapy in a number of CNS indications, including excessive fatigue associated with conditions such as multiple sclerosis.

Dr Werner Lanthaler, Chief Executive Officer of Evotec commented: “We are happy that the Neu² consortium has chosen to support our H3 receptor antagonist programme for further development within the BioPharma initiative. By driving these novel drug candidates from identification through to the first clinical steps, we can optimally capture the commercial value of this programme.”