Evotec, a biotech firm based in Hamburg, Germany, has announced an $18 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in support of women’s health and contraceptive technology.

The grant will support a fully integrated drug discovery program that will take an idea from concept to screening to pre-clinical development candidate — by leveraging Evotec’s integrated drug discovery and development platforms as well as therapeutic area expertise. To efficiently deliver safe and efficacious pre-clinical drug candidates, the firm will use its extensive toolbox of computational tools, structural biology, therapeutic area knowledge, translational biology models, safety assessment, and talent across the full research and development continuum.

In 2019, the foundation awarded a five-year, $23.8 million grant to Evotec in support of new treatment regimens for tuberculosis.

“We are very excited to embark on the mission of delivering a first-in-class women’s health program to the clinic and making it globally available,” said Evotec COO Craig Johnstone. “This new grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation allows us to leverage Evotec’s integrated platform for the discovery and development of novel, safe, and efficacious drug candidates. We are grateful for the foundation’s trust in the capabilities of our integrated platform and look forward to delivering a novel option with the potential of changing the lives of many women to the better.”

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