HAMBURG, Germany, June 27, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Evotec AG (Frankfurt:EVT) (TecDAX) today announced the achievement of specific success criteria in an ion channel research collaboration with Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Ono) and the receipt of a milestone payment. This collaboration project was initiated in October 2009 to identify small molecules targeting an ion channel implicated in cardiovascular, CNS and urological diseases in one and a half years and now successfully identified multiple compounds meeting various criteria in activity, selectivity and pharmacokinetic characteristics. Evotec and Ono now agree to continue this research collaboration until April 2012 and enter into lead optimisation with the goal to generate new chemical entities, which will have the potential to become new drug candidates. Ono has a worldwide right to develop and commercialize compounds generated by Evotec in this collaboration.
