Evotec AG announced that it has sold its chemical development business to Aptuit, Inc., Greenwich, CT, US, for approximately EUR 46.4 million (approx. US$ 63.9 million) in cash.

The chemical development business comprises Evotec's capabilities in process research & development (PRD), custom preparation, analytical development, pilot plant manufacturing and formulation. With approximately 210 people based in Oxford and Glasgow, UK, this business generated EUR 26.8 million of third-party revenues (40% of 2006 total Group revenues) for the full-year 2006. Aptuit intends to retain all of the employees of the chemical development business.

"The deal announced today will position our chemical development business within an environment where it can thrive, as Aptuit is a global company focused on streamlining and supporting the drug development process for biotechnology and pharmaceutical innovators. It will allow Evotec to focus even more on its strategy to become an emerging pharmaceutical company providing higher value research solutions to our partners through collaborative research and partnering of preclinical and clinical programmes developed internally," said Jörn Aldag, president & chief executive officer of Evotec. "The chemical development business has been a mainstay of Evotec for many years and we are delighted to have found a purchaser to move this business on. The excellent terms achieved in this transaction put us in a much stronger position to leverage our clinical CNS assets and we are committed to further expand our pipeline and capabilities through in-licensing or M&A. I would also like to thank all the employees in the chemical development group sincerely for their hard work and their strong commitment to Evotec over the years and wish them well for the future."

"This acquisition continues Aptuit's momentum as we assemble a complete suite of drug development services in all three major geographies in Europe, North America and Asia," said Michael A. Griffith, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Aptuit. "We will integrate the highly-regarded scientific staff and two pilot plants in Oxford and state-of-the-art parenteral fill/finish capabilities in Glasgow into our existing global network. We will then leverage those capabilities to drive our commercial-scale capabilities in India, providing our clients with world-class drug development services from discovery to commercialisation. That we can consummate a cross-border transaction of this magnitude in the current market downturn is due to the strength of our equity partners at Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and Temasek."

Evotec remains committed to being the premier partner for pharmaceutical and biotech companies by providing innovative solutions to their research needs. The company will continue to enter into collaborative research partnerships utilising its drug discovery technologies and platform including high throughput screening, fragment-based drug discovery and medicinal chemistry expertise across various therapeutic areas. These partnerships will include creative deal structures intended to share in the downstream value of the research. In addition, Evotec will continue to build its pipeline of CNS programmes which it will actively seek to partner supported by preclinical and/or clinical results.