CRO

Evotec's hybrid CRO approach pays off in Q1

Germany's Evotec splits its operation between contract research for big-name third parties and in-house work on its own pipeline, riding its uncommon take on the CRO business to an uptick in revenue last quarter.

Evotec brought in about $24.1 million in revenue on the quarter, good for about 3% growth. EVT Execute, the company's CRO arm, brought in $26.3 million on the quarter, while EVT Innovate, which outlicenses internal candidates, picked up $3.4 million. However, $5.5 million in intersegment eliminations--in which one business sold services to the other--brought down the revenue total.

The company took a $5.5 million net loss on the quarter, but Evotec considers itself in a strong position with about $124 million in cash and more on the way tied to near-term milestones from its many partnerships.

Last month, Evotec teamed up with Debiopharm and Convergence Pharmaceuticals in separate deals to handle early-stage drug development work, dovetailing with the company's core business of pursuing risk-splitting projects with drug developing sponsors in exchange for CRO fees and a cut of future profits. That model has attracted collaborators including Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) and Roche ($RHHBY).

And the Hamburg-headquartered company is working to expand EVT Innovate, its internal program, in March buying up a biopharma asset management company to bring in a pipeline of its own and get to work on some unpartnered assets.

- read the results