Swiss drug giant Roche has formed an alliance with Germany’s Evotec that will focus on the discovery and development of candidates against an undisclosed target for central nervous system disorders and other indications.

The two companies already have a history together through previous collaborations relating to service agreements and CNS drug in-licensing, but have now decided to combine their drug discovery power in the hope of creating novel, lucrative therapies.

"This collaboration capitalises on Evotec’s and Roche’s complementary drug discovery capabilities and underlines the value of our drug discovery platform and CNS expertise,” said John Kemp, Evotec’s Executive Vice President of R&D, commenting on the partnership.

Under the terms of the deal, Roche and Evotec will jointly progress projects up to clinical development, and then Roche has exclusive rights for further development. In return, Evotec could receive milestone payments in excess of 100 million euros in total, as well as royalties on the sale of any products, potentially adding a nice little portion of revenue to its koffers.