NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – German firm Evotec said today that it will buy the zebrafish screening operations of UK company Summit for around £500,000 ($754,000).
The small molecule drug developer plans to use the new Summit operations in Abingdon, UK, and in Singapore, to prioritize promising compounds early in the drug discovery process.
Summit had agreements with a number of drug makers, including a three-year alliance with Johnson & Johnson, and collaborations with Bayer-Schering, Merck KGaA, Roche, and others.
Evotec said it expects this business to contribute to its revenue this year and to increase its revenue and profitability over the next two years.
Evotec COO Mario Polywka said the acquisition gives the company "access to a portfolio of validated safety pharmacology and toxicology assays and disease models for target validation that enjoy growing interest in our industry.
"The integration of this business offers significant synergies, including the move of Summit's UK operations into our facilities in Abingdon, the integration of this offering into our global sales and marketing network as well as the use of the Singapore facility as a base to target new growth markets in the Far East," he added.
A little more than two years ago, Evotec sold off its high-throughput screening division, Evotec Technologies, to PerkinElmer for roughly $30.5 million. At the time, Evotec said that the divestiture was part of its strategy to focus the company on drug development, and said the proceeds from the sale will help fund its central nervous system pipeline.