HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) - Pharmaceutical drug discovery company Evotec is sticking to its annual targets for now despite a cyber attack. However, effects of the attack on the forecasts could not be ruled out, the Hamburg-based company announced on Saturday night. Operating profit is expected to continue to grow significantly, after high costs had burdened 2022. At the start of the new year, it was only said that this had been strong. Details should be available with the half-year figures at the beginning of August. Evotec recently had to leave the MDax due to the delayed publication of the audited annual report for 2022 as a result of the cyber attack, but is now expected to return to the mid-cap index in the near future. Evotec expects this to happen on June 19 in the course of a so-called fast entry.

"In response to the criminal cyber attack, Evotec has taken immediate

action to contain and remediate the attack by disconnecting its

Company taking its externally facing systems offline," the statement added. However, a rapid return to full productivity and business recovery is

and business recovery is expected.

Looking at the first quarter, Evotec highlighted several extensions and expansions of development partnerships, such as in neurology with pharma group Bristol Myers Squibb and in immune-based therapies with Janssen. With such weighty collaborations behind it, the company hopes for a better run again.

Specifically, with sales expected to grow to between EUR 820 million and EUR 840 million in 2023, management is projecting an increase in adjusted operating profit of up to 28 percent to between EUR 115 million and EUR 130 million.

The outlook is underpinned by a further cooperation agreement announced in May. Thus, the U.S. subsidiary Just - Evotec Biologics and the U.S. subsidiary of the Swiss pharmaceutical group Novartis, Sandoz, agreed to collaborate on the development and subsequent manufacture of several copycat drugs. Evotec will receive an upfront payment in the double-digit millions. Depending on success, much more money may flow.

This is an important step for the drug discovery company, as the Group has invested a lot of money in building a state-of-the-art production site for its subsidiary Just - Evotec Biologics in Redmond, Washington State. Another so-called Jpod plant is being built in Toulouse, France.

Group CEO Werner Lanthaler had advertised that the technology of his U.S. subsidiary, acquired in 2019, would take the production of biologics to a new level and enable extremely fast and cost-effective production. But the start-up in the U.S. was initially slow - Evotec had more capacity than customers. However, Lahntaler was convinced that this should change this year - and the outlook for the year is also based on this.

And Lanthaler also sees the Sandoz cooperation as underpinning the company's medium-term goals. This refers to sales growth to more than one billion euros and an adjusted operating result of more than 300 million euros in 2025./mis/tav