Evotec AG announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire all shares in Kinaxo Biotechnologies GmbH, a Munich-based drug discovery alliance company supporting the development of targeted drugs and strengthening its position as quality leader in drug discovery.

The acquisition of Kinaxo confirms Evotec's leading position as fully integrated drug discovery and early development partner for pharma and biotechnology companies. Integration of Kinaxo's novel technologies enables Evotec and its partners to take earlier educated decisions on drug efficacy, safety and response in patients.

Kinaxo's capabilities comprise a unique combination of innovative technologies improving drug development across the entire pharma value chain: cellular target profiling uncovers the molecular targets of compounds with unknown mode-of-action and reveals possible off-target side effects early in the discovery and development process. KinAffinity determines the cellular selectivity of kinase inhibitors, which represent the most important class of targeted cancer drugs. PhosphoScout provides valuable knowledge on drug modes-of-action in vivo and how they respond to drug treatment.

“Through the acquisition of Kinaxo, Evotec gains access to a highly innovative technology base in drug discovery, which allows us to integrate a powerful response prediction platform with our leading drug discovery expertise. We are proud to significantly strengthen our performance-based discovery offering to our customers with this unique value proposition,” said Dr Werner Lanthaler, CEO of Evotec AG.

Dr Andreas Jenne, CEO of Kinaxo, adds: “We are excited to join forces with Evotec. Our technology portfolio perfectly fits into Evotec's integrated service offering. This will allow us to fully leverage our capabilities and grow our business much faster within larger discovery alliances.”

Prof. Dr Axel Ullrich, director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry, Martinsried, and co-founder of Kinaxo commented: “Kinaxo has built a unique technology platform that allows comprehensive analysis of cancer signal transduction processes and their response to drug treatment. The integration of the leading drug discovery capability will implement Evotec as a driver towards personalised medicine in the future.”

The purchase price consists of a cash consideration of € 3m and 2.597.400 shares from authorised capital. In addition an earn-out component of up to € 4m in cash will become due if certain performance-based milestones are reached. Parts of the shares are held in escrow and their release is subject to certain company events and representations. All shares issued are subject to certain lock-up provisions. The deal is expected to close in April 2011.

Despite cash requirements for transaction and integration costs of approx. € 4m resulting from the acquisition, Evotec confirms to keep a very strong strategic cash balance also in 2011. For the current fiscal year, the Company expects to grow revenues by more than 15 per cent and to end the year 2011 with a liquidity of more than € 64 m.