Evestra Receives Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grant

SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Evestra, Inc. has received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance research on a technology that could lead to long-acting injectable fertility control for women in underserved regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, where less than 20 percent of women use modern fertility control.

“We share the Gates Foundation’s concern that more than 220 million women who don’t want to get pregnant and live in developing countries lack access to fertility control and voluntary family planning information and services”

“We share the Gates Foundation’s concern that more than 220 million women who don’t want to get pregnant and live in developing countries lack access to fertility control and voluntary family planning information and services,” said Ze’ev Shaked, Ph.D., Evestra’s President and CEO. “We applaud the Foundation’s commitment to solving this problem. Evestra’s expertise and innovative approach to women’s health issues will greatly benefit the Gates Foundation’s efforts. We’re are excited to work with them.”

Evestra is applying its proprietary prodrug platform technology to the development of the product, said Klaus Nickisch, Ph.D., Evestra’s Chief Scientific Officer. A prodrug is a compound that is inactive until it is inside a human body, where metabolic processes convert it into an active drug.

About Evestra

Evestra Inc. (www.Evestra.com) is a San Antonio, Texas-based biopharmaceutical company engaged in the research and development of innovative women’s healthcare products. Evestra’s products address unmet medical needs in women’s health arenas, and are derived from three research platforms – steroidal medicinal chemistry, vaginal drug delivery, and prodrug technology.