German drug discovery and technology company Evotec has established a dedicated site in Orth/Donau, Austria, for the research and development of gene therapy-based projects.

The Hamburg-based firm said the “strategic addition” of Evotec Gene Therapy (Evotec GT) marks an important step towards the long-term vision of becoming a fully modality-agnostic drug discovery and development partnership company.

Evotec GT’s scientists have deep expertise in vectorology and virology as well as disease insights, especially in hemophilia, hematology, metabolic and muscle diseases, it added.

“In recent years, precision medicines based on cell and gene therapies have emerged and are predicted to grow significantly. Gene therapy is a promising approach in the development of genetic medicines for patients, especially for inherited and rare diseases,” said Evotec CEO Werner Lanthaler.

At the same time, Evotec announced that it has entered into a long-term research alliance with Japanese drugmaker Takeda.

Under the alliance, Evotec will support multiple Takeda programs, targeting conditions aligned with the Osaka-based group’s four core therapeutic areas: oncology, rare diseases, neuroscience and gastroenterology.

This latest deal expands ongoing collaboration with Takeda. Last September, the two companies entered into a multi-year alliance worth more than $850 million for Evotec, which will deliver candidates for Takeda to take into clinical development.

Takeda, which merged with biopharma Shire in January 2019, and Evotec are also working together to find a treatment for neurodegenerative diseases that cause dementia.

Other major drugmakers that Evotec is collaborating with include Sanofi, Celgene, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck & Co. The German group paid $90 million last July to buy US biologics company Just Biotherapeutics.