Evotec enters partnership with Charité to expand molecular patient database in autoimmune diseases

Evotec SE (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, MDAX/TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809; NASDAQ: EVO) announced today that the Company has entered a partnership with Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (“Charité”), one of the leading and largest university hospitals in Europe, to generate a molecular patient database for ANCA-associated vasculitis (“AAV”), a collection of relatively rare autoimmune diseases of unknown cause, characterised by inflammation of blood vessels.

The strategic partnership between Evotec and Charité aims at achieving a better disease understanding of AAV by creating a unique longitudinal PanOmics database from the analysis of patient material. Biospecimens from AAV patients will be collected by Charité and analysed on Evotec’s PanOmics platform, which includes genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics as well as single-cell sequencing technologies. Together with supplementary pseudonymised patient data, these PanOmics data will feed into Evotec’s proprietary translational molecular patient data platform E.MPD, which serves as the central data repository for molecular patient data.

For academic research, Charité will receive access to the data generated within the partnership through Evotec’s analytics software PanHunter, a tool for interactive and deep understanding of the data. Evotec has the exclusive right to leverage its M.L.-powered platform to translate the research into precision therapeutics. Financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.

Dr Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, commented: “We are delighted to announce this exciting new partnership with Charité, a renowned centre of medical excellence in Germany, and expand Evotec’s E.MPD database within autoimmune diseases. With an improved molecular understanding of the complexities of ANCA-associated vasculitis, we can unlock the potential for more precise diagnostics, more effective treatments, and ultimately better outcomes for patients.” 

Prof. Dr med. Adrian Schreiber, executing Principal Investigator; Department of Nephrology and Intensive Medical Care at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, added: “The major benefit of this partnership is the combination of invaluable expertise of both partners, which puts us in the promising position to pave the way for more precise diagnostics and efficient treatments for ANCA-associated vasculitis, where specific targeted therapies are still desperately needed.” 

About ANCA-associated vasculitis
Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody (“ANCA”)-associated vasculitis (“AAV”) is a group of autoimmune diseases characterised by inflammation and damage to small blood vessels. This inflammation is typically caused by ANCAs, self-reactive antibodies that bind to certain cells of the immune system — called neutrophils — and overly activate them. AAV affects about 1 in 50,000 people. This relative rarity and the non-specific presentation pose diagnostic challenges and often result in a significant diagnostic delay of more than 6 months in a third of patients. Despite recent advances in diagnosis and treatment, patients with AAV are at risk of organ- or life-threatening complications, both from their disease and its treatment which remains mostly symptomatic. The clue to diagnosis is often developing multisystem involvement; therefore, a very careful and systematic approach is required to make the diagnosis and a more detailed understanding is needed for potentially curative approaches.

About E.MPD
E.MPD, Evotec’s translational molecular patient database, is one of the largest and highest quality molecular databases globally. Evotec’s integrated technology platforms show that the best way to effectively treat disease is to identify underlying disease mechanisms and find the most suitable therapy on the basis of molecular data guiding all experimental processes towards early disease relevance. Therefore, data aggregation, integration, and the precise analysis of data is the critical path to effective and affordable medicine in the future. 

E.MPD serves as the backbone for data-driven partnerships that will lead to innovative new medicines, better patient stratification, and potentially pave the way towards a new paradigm of more effective diagnostic and preventative healthcare. Through gathering and analysing patient-derived data in combination with A.I./M.L. tools, Evotec is also able to better predict both safety and efficacy indicators in drug development.