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EVOTEC AG: 'LAB282' AWARDED FIRST PROJECTS - Seite 2

Dr Thomas Hanke, LAB282 Expert-in-Residence and Head of Academic
Partnerships at Evotec, commented: "I am excited and very pleased we were
able to select two outstanding and truly translational projects from a
panel of high-quality applications for the first round of LAB282 awards. My
cordial congratulations go to Prof. Bhattacharya and Dr Ahel and their
teams for their excellent work. I am very much looking forward to closely
collaborating with the Oxford University and Evotec teams in accelerating
bona fide drug discovery from the awarded projects."

Shoumo Bhattacharya, British Heart Foundation Chair of Cardiovascular
Medicine at Oxford University and lead academic on the evasins project,
said: "The LAB282 funding, which brings Evotec's world-class expertise in
the development of peptide therapeutics and in inflammation to the evasin
project, will help the development of new therapeutics - 'drugs from bugs'
- that can treat orphan autoimmune diseases such as myocarditis."

Carolyn Porter, Deputy Head of Technology Transfer, Oxford University
Innovation, added: "The LAB282 partnership was established to accelerate
drug discovery at Oxford University. This funding will enable the evasin
project to enter the clinic more rapidly for the benefit of patients with
cardiovascular autoimmune disorders for which there is no cure. Through
validation of DarTG role in bacterial growth and function, our second
funded project could uncover a new strategy for development of
antibiotics."

Additional scientific information

The "drugs from bugs" project will be looking to develop evasins, which are
peptides derived from the saliva of ticks. Ticks have been around since the
time of the dinosaurs, and have been evolving these peptides to block
chemokines, which are proteins in the body that recruit inflammatory cells
to the site of injury. The research team led by Professor Shoumo
Bhattacharya have developed a new "Bug-to-Drug" technology to find these
tick peptides in order to treat inflammatory and fibrotic diseases that are
currently incurable. In this project, they will use these peptides to
target chemokines that cause giant cell myocarditis ("GCM"), a rare
autoimmune disease with no cure. GCM usually affects young adults,