Benzinga | Aug 20, 2020 06:13AM EDT

CENTOGENE and Evotec Announced Expanded Collaboration Into Gaucher Disease

Centogene N.V. (NASDAQ:CNTG) and Evotec SE (OTC:EVOTF) today announced that the two companies have expanded their existing drug discovery partnership related to Gaucher disease a genetic lysosomal storage disorder caused by mutations in the glucocerebrosidase gene. The parties intend to develop a treatment for Gaucher patients.

Prof. Arndt Rolfs, CEO of CENTOGENE, said, "Our collaboration with Evotec further underlines CENTOGENE's commitment to driving biomarker discoveries and accelerating orphan drug development by leveraging our global expertise in rare hereditary diseases. In particular, we are able to draw on over 20 years of knowledge and research of Gaucher disease. By continuing our work alongside Evotec, we will accelerate transformational medical solutions in the rare disease field."

Dr. Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, commented: "The partnership with CENTOGENE supports and complements our patient-centric drug discovery approach in Gaucher disease. We highly value CENTOGENE's biomarker expertise and real-world data-based global proprietary rare disease platform, which fits perfectly to our iPSC-based drug discovery platform. The combination should help identify disease-modifying treatments for this underserved patient population."

Dr. Philip Lambert, Chief Scientific Officer at CENTOGENE, added, "The potential to further the understanding of rare diseases connected to mutations in the GBA gene is extremely important to patients and their families around the world, and we hope that today's collaboration agreement will help lead to transformational personalized treatments for these patients."

Under the terms of the expanded agreement, CENTOGENE and Evotec will work together to research, discover, and develop medical solutions for rare diseases related to the protein target glucocerebrosidase ("GBA"), a well-known gene linked to Gaucher disease. The collaboration brings together Evotec's leading induced pluripotent stem cell ("iPSC") platform and broad drug discovery and development capabilities with CENTOGENE's global proprietary rare disease platform, including insights as well as iPSC lines. Ultimately, the aim is to address the needs of this orphan drug indication. The collaboration builds on the partnership Evotec and CENTOGENE entered in 2018 with the goal to discover and develop novel small molecules in rare hereditary metabolic diseases.