Secarna Pharma, Evotec Expand Partnership In Field Of Antisense Drug Discovery

(RTTNews) - Secarna Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG and Evotec SE (EVTCY.PK, EVOTF.PK) said that they have expanded their strategic partnership in the field of antisense oligonucleotide - based therapeutics. Terms and conditions of the collaboration were not disclosed.

The companies are now also working on industry partners' discovery, research and development programs leveraging Secarna's antisense oligonucleotide expertise with Evotec's unparalleled discovery and development capabilities.

Secarna said it will precisely design, screen, characterize and select antisense oligonucleotide molecules, which specifically bind to the targeted pre-mRNA of the gene of interest.

Secarna will provide lead compounds for in-vitro and in-vivo proof-of-concept work to be performed for industry partners. Depending on the scope of the collaboration with the respective industrial partner, successful candidates may be progressed into IND-enabling studies and, ultimately, clinical development under such alliances, Secarna said.

In August 2020, Secarna and Evotec started their collaboration with the goal to build a co-owned LNAplus antisense oligonucleotide pipeline based on a number of selected challenging targets across various indications.