Science Pool

With game changer therapies and unprecedented clinical successs for patients, Immunotherapy has becomes an essential pillar for cancer treatment. During this webinar, Michael Esquerre, our VP, In Vitro Biology, discusses how the team at Evotec are pusing Immuno-Oncology drug discovery, playing with multi-therapeutic modalities. Stream it on demand now!

Watch Now

Date: 17 - 18 November, 2022

Venue: Encore Boston Harbor, Boston, MA

Attendees: Todd Ireland (Senior Director Business Development) and Cenk Cetin (VP Business Development)

Evotec and Just-Evotec Biologics will be attending the Pharma Partnering Summit in Boston, MA.

If you wish to meet with us in Boston, get in touch via the form below, we will be happy to arrange a meeting.

Learn more about the Pharma Partnering US Summit

Date: 2 - 4 November, 2022

Venue: Congress Centre, Basel, Switzerland

Attendees: Christelle Dagoneau (SVP Business Development), Thierry Wurch (SVP Integrated Biologics Discovery), and Nigel Shipston (Senior Director Business Development)

Evotec and Just-Evotec Biologics will be attending and presenting its science at the Festival of Biologics in Basel.

Our scientific program:

Presentation: Paradigm Shift in Biologics Manufacturing: Leveraging Continuous Manufacturing and AI/ML Based Technologies From Discovery to Market Supply

During this session, Christelle Dagoneau will present a unique platform concept which integrates the discovery, development, and manufacture of biologics in innovative and easily deployable production facilities called J.POD. She will particularly describe how the Just-Evotec Biologics cutting-edge AI/ML protein design technologies combined with industry-leading intensified continuous bioprocess can help de-risk and accelerate biotherapeutics development from lead generation through to BLA while offering cost-effective and truly flexible clinical and commercial supply solutions.

Presented by Christelle Dagoneau, SVP Business Development at Just-Evotec Biologics on 2 November at 17:10 CET

Presentation: Evotec's Integrated Biologics Discovery and Development Platform to Strengthen Immunotherapy Research Programs

At Evotec, we discover, develop and manufacture novel medicines for hard-to-treat diseases through efficient partnerships with academia, biotechs and pharma. Our discovery efforts focus on data-driven precision medicine and early disease relevance to improve success rates in identifying best-in-class therapeutics.

To support immunotherapy research projects, we developed an integrated discovery platform ranging from target validation, antibody discovery and optimization, in vitro/in vivo pharmacology, PK, and toxicology to select the best clinical candidates. By applying both humanized mouse-derived hybridoma and phage display coupled to AI/ML-based optimization, antibodies are selected based on disease relevant, target related in vitro and in vivo models. Applications for the identification of immune-modulating molecules will be discussed.

Presented by Theirry Wurch, SVP Integrated Biologics Discovery on 3 November at 17:20 CET

Poster: Conversion of an Intensified Fed-Batch to an Integrated Continuous Bioprocess

Despite advances in upstream and downstream Integrated Continuous Bioprocessing (ICB) technologies, reducing manufacturing costs and process development costs continue to be a concern.

Conversion of a fed-batch (FB) or intensified fed-batch (IFB) process into a hybrid or end-to-end ICB process may be particularly challenging but manageable using key platform elements: high specific productivity cell lines, low-cost, concentrated perfusion media formulations, an optimized and scalable cell-retention device, and the impact to product quality remains as a potential issue stemming from higher culture cell densities, longer culture durations, and differences in product residence times.

This work involved the rapid conversion of an IFB mAb process to a hybrid ICB process using the Just-Evotec Biologics platform, resulting in several key project accomplishments:

• Mitigation of upstream IFB challenges: Filter fouling due to higher culture cell densities and durations was addressed by controlling cell density and implementing continuous harvest (CH).
• Significant productivity increase: 5-fold increase in product mass per working volume compared to original FB process at the 500L manufacturing scale.
• Short development time: < 6 months from project start to cGMP batch completion.
• Minimal risk from changes in product quality: most attributes (HMW and rCE) and process impurities (HCP, DNA, and Pro-A) were comparable (minor differences in glycan distribution).
• These results demonstrate that the rapid conversion of FB and IFB mAb processes to ICB can be met when implementing a robust ICB platform, thus supporting the biotherapeutic industry’s need to quickly adapt to changing clinical and business circumstances.

If you wish to meet with us in Basel, get in touch via the form below, we will be happy to arrange a meeting.

Learn more about the Festival of Biologics

The tuberculosis lesion environment is highly complex. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) reside in various niches and their metabolism and other characteristics, including drug tolerance depend on the specific environmental characteristics of those niches. So-called persister bacteria refer to those that are difficult to eradicate with drug treatment and that may contribute to the long durations of TB treatment required for cure. Many in vitro models have been developed in attempts to mimic these niches with the objective of determining potential anti-TB compound activity in models that reflect M.tb’s characteristics in vivo.
Foamy macrophages Foam-M are characterized by lipid body accumulation induced by Mtb infection and they may be an important niche for Mtb during infection.

In this poster we:

• We describe the development of a robust 96 well plate Foamy macrophages assay designed to mimic this niche, and suitable for medium-high throughput evaluation of compound activity during drug discovery.
• We describe TB compounds activity in the foamy macrophage assay compared to other TB current assays
• We show that infection of foamy macrophage does not trigger an anti-inflammatory response in host cells

DOWNLOAD

Hepatitis B is a serious liver infection caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV). It is still a major public health problem with 250 million chronically HBV-infected patients worldwide with none of the current treatments leading to a cure.
More effective treatments are needed to achieve HBV cure in a large proportion of patients.
We aim to develop a treatment, combining simultaneous stimulation of CD40 and IFN-I pathway, which leads to a strong anti-HBV effect with minimal inflammation.

In this poster we:

• Present the key results that demonstrated the potential of such combination to induce anti-HBV effects in vitro and in vivo
• Introduce the design of our new antibody-based therapeutic that combine the two modalities in one single molecule
• Demonstrate the efficacy of the molecule in HBV infection system in Primary Human Hepatocytes
• Show key results from our preclinical safety assessment in vitro and in vivo in Non-Human Primate

DOWNLOAD