EUR 4 million in funds for Evotec in Hamburg

4 April 2022

Biotech company to expand screening facilities - focus on research into COVID-19

Evotec SE announced plans Wednesday (March 30, 2022) for two new high-throughput screening facilities and additional equipment for investigating the safety and efficacy of new therapeutic candidates at its headquarters in Hamburg. Research will focus on COVID-19 therapeutics and other viral diseases. The City of Hamburg is putting EUR 4 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe (REACT-EU) towards the expansion. This comes after the IFB Hamburg (Hamburgische Investitions- und Förderbank) approved the grant for the research facility in early 2022.

Accelerating research into pandemics

Evotec will use the new facilities to accelerate the research and development of therapeutics against COVID-19 in co-operation with international and regional partners. The facilities will also be used for projects in the Pandemic Preparedness and Rapid Response Technology Platform (PRROTECT) that aims at collaborative research and development of therapeutics against viruses with a high pandemic risk.

Dr Werner Lanthaler, CEO of Evotec, commented: “We are very pleased to have been awarded this ERDF/REACT-EU grant by the City of Hamburg through the IFB Hamburg. The funding will strengthen Hamburg as a research centre and contribute to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With our expanded HTS facilities and the additional equipment, we can enter into even more partnerships, especially with smaller companies, and thus support the research and development of new therapeutics even more efficiently.” Founded in Hamburg in 1993, Evotec launched one of the first high-throughput screening systems in 2000. The company employs over 4,000 people at branches in Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Austria and the United States.
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