Evotech, Boehringer Ingelheim and bioMérieux launch joint venture to combat antimicrobial resistance

Evotech, Boehringer Ingelheim and bioMérieux have formed a joint venture to create the next generation of antimicrobials along with actionable diagnostics to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

The €40m joint venture will be funded predominantly by Boehringer Ingelheim, with a contribution of €30m. Evotec and bioMérieux will contribute €5m each.

The joint company, Aurobac Therapeutics SAS, will 'combine the capabilities of its three founding companies towards developing a new precision medicine approach, from diagnosis to cure’.

The collaboration will unite Evotec’s expertise on infectious disease research, bioMérieux’s expertise in infectious disease diagnostics and Boehringer Ingelheim’s broad drug discovery and significant clinical development capabilities.

AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicine, making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.

As a result of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines become ineffective and infections become increasingly difficult or impossible to treat, with the World Health Organization (WHO) citing AMR as one of the top ten threats to global health.

Aurobac will work to shift the strategy related to antibiotic treatment regimens, which currently focuses on empirical approaches using broad-spectrum and unfocused medicines. The joint company’s aim is to turn this into a ‘precision approach’, using new effective and targeted modalities, and rapid and actionable diagnostics to identify pathogens and their resistance patterns quickly.

Commenting on the joint venture, Werner Lanthaler, chief executive officer of Evotec, said: “The grim prospect of a post-antibiotic era has many causes but only one solution: The development of new, targeted, and effective antimicrobial therapies.

“We are excited to launch Aurobac together with our partners at Boehringer Ingelheim and bioMérieux, to combine our complementary strengths. By leveraging Evotec’s multimodality approach to infectious diseases, we are confident that Aurobac will be able to generate much-needed progress to tackle the global challenge of AMR.”

Michel Pairet, head of Boehringer Ingelheim’s Innovation unit and member of the Board of Managing Directors, added: “The rise of antibiotic-resistant infections is indeed a looming global crisis… Antibiotic resistance kills about 1.27 million people globally every year and it has been estimated that by 2050, as many as 10 million worldwide deaths could result from AMR, making it potentially deadlier than cancer.”