On Jul. 3, 2019, Evotec announced that the strategic transaction to acquire Just Biotherapeutics, signed on 20 May 2019, had been completed. The acquisition accelerated Evotec’s long-term strategy to be the industry partner of choice for external end-to-end innovation, strengthening Evotec’s multimodality approach to R&D.

Evotec acquired Just.Bio to integrate their cutting-edge machine-learning technologies and agile, flexible methods for the design, development, and manufacturing of biologics into Evotec’s drug discovery offerings. Just.Bio’s approx. 95 employees and its state-of-the-art biologic development and manufacturing site located in Seattle, WA, USA, will expand Evotec’s US footprint. Just.Bio’s capabilities and expertise comprise an in-house, integrated technology platform, J.DESIGN, enabling smart and efficient biologics’ drug development from design and lead optimisation to manufacturing:

Significant further potential lies in the company’s J.POD(R) technology for flexible and modular, larger scale manufacturing of clinical and commercial-stage biologics;

J.MD(TM) is a technology-based process development tool using Abacus(TM), a machine learning-based computer-aided design tool, to predict and select optimal molecules for further development;

JP3(R) includes lab and computational tools for rapid development of a high-yielding manufacturing process along with a cGMP early clinical manufacturing facility.

In less than four years, Just.Bio has been able to build their J.DESIGN platform and attract a diversified customer portfolio resulting in strong financial growth with reported 2018 revenues of approx. $20 million. Evotec will pay a total consideration of up to $90 million including potential earn outs in the next three years. The initial consideration upon closing is $60 million subject to customary net debt and working capital adjustments.