Evotec (NASDAQ:EVO) used a March 10, 2026 webcast to outline “Horizon,” the next phase of its multi-stage transformation initiative, and to provide preliminary unaudited 2025 results, 2026 guidance, and a medium-term financial framework through 2030.
Horizon: a new operating model built on three pillars
Chief Executive Officer Dr. Christian Wojczewski said Horizon is designed to reposition Evotec for “sustainable growth and value creation,” with upgrades across operational excellence, scientific leadership, and commercial execution. He described Horizon as the next step following a “priority reset” begun in 2024 and carried through 2025.
Footprint simplification and workforce reduction
A central element of Horizon is a smaller global footprint. Management said Evotec reduced sites from 19 to 14 during 2024 and 2025 and intends to streamline further to 10 sites over the next two years. The company said the streamlined footprint anticipates reducing approximately 800 positions across affected locations and enabling functions.
Wojczewski said the future footprint will emphasize “technology hubs and centers of excellence,” prioritizing owned sites to lower structural costs and increase utilization. He highlighted Toulouse and Verona as strengthened “fully integrated” discovery and preclinical development sites, noting Evotec owns both facilities. Management said concentrating capabilities is intended to reduce duplication, improve execution discipline, and support more competitive scoping for customer programs.
Commercial execution upgrades and AI-enabled discovery
Management said Horizon includes upgrading the customer-facing organization to improve responsiveness and win rates. Wojczewski said Evotec has already begun upgrading commercial leadership, expanding business development, and sharpening proposal management to reduce the time from request-for-proposal to submission. He added that prospects increased by about 20% during the second half of 2025 and said that trend has continued, while sales intake has stabilized over recent months.
In Q&A, Wojczewski said pricing pressure is most pronounced in more standardized services, singling out basic synthetic chemistry for small molecules as an area showing increased commoditization. He contrasted this with strategic opportunities tied to differentiated platforms such as Omics and Evotec’s molecular patient database, where he said discussions are typically more output-focused than price-driven.
On AI, Wojczewski said Evotec already uses AI in multiple drug discovery and development activities, including pattern recognition on large datasets in strategic partnerships. He emphasized AI will be an increasingly important tool, but not a replacement for wet-lab experimentation and high-quality data generation.
Financial implications: savings, costs, and 2026 guidance
Chief Financial Officer Paul Hitchin presented preliminary unaudited 2025 figures and Horizon’s financial mechanics. For 2025, Evotec expects results within previously communicated ranges, including:
- Group revenue of approximately EUR 788 million (EUR 811 million at constant exchange rates)
- Adjusted group EBITDA of approximately EUR 41 million (EUR 52 million at constant exchange rates)
- Year-end cash of approximately EUR 476 million
By segment, management said the DMPD business reflected continued softness in early discovery and preclinical markets, with preliminary 2025 revenue of approximately EUR 529 million (down about 13% year over year) and adjusted EBITDA of approximately -EUR 12 million. Hitchin cited lower funding for early-stage biotechs and delayed program starts, combined with costs adjusting more slowly than revenue, leading to overcapacity.
Just Evotec Biologics, by contrast, posted preliminary 2025 revenue of approximately EUR 259 million (up about 40% year over year) and adjusted EBITDA of approximately EUR 53 million. Hitchin said fourth-quarter results included an additional license fee benefit of approximately EUR 65 million and pointed to the Sandoz agreement as validation of Evotec’s continuous manufacturing technology and a shift toward more scalable, technology-driven partnerships, including licensing.
For Horizon, Evotec is targeting EUR 75 million in run-rate savings by the end of 2027, supported by footprint optimization, workforce adjustments, and simplification. Hitchin said the company expects approximately EUR 100 million in cash restructuring costs over 2026–2028, plus non-cash asset impairment components. In Q&A, he said roughly half of the cash outlay is expected in 2026, with most of the remainder in 2027 and a small tail into early 2028. On savings phasing, he indicated 20–25% of the EUR 75 million in 2026, the majority in 2027, and some carryover into 2028; he added the majority should be reflected in the 2027 financial statements.
Evotec’s 2026 guidance calls for group revenue of approximately EUR 700–780 million at incurred FX rates (EUR 730–810 million at constant FX) and adjusted group EBITDA of approximately EUR 0–40 million (EUR 10–50 million at constant FX). Hitchin described 2026 as a transition year, with Horizon benefits expected to become increasingly visible in the second half. Management said it will provide more detail, including segment-level information, with final full-year reporting on April 8, 2026.
Medium-term framework through 2030
Hitchin said Evotec now expects a “phased trajectory” aligned with Horizon’s implementation. Under the new framework, the company expects group revenues to exceed EUR 1 billion by 2030 and reiterated an expectation for adjusted EBITDA margin to reach “the 20% levels by 2028” and exceed that level by 2030. Management attributed margin progression to a combination of recurring cost reductions from Horizon, a shift toward higher-margin and more capital-efficient revenue streams (particularly within Just Evotec Biologics), lower capital expenditures targeted to below 10% of revenues, and operating leverage as utilization improves and growth resumes.
On market conditions, management said post-pandemic funding and development activity has normalized and early-stage biotech funding has tightened, with pharmaceutical companies placing greater emphasis on R&D returns and execution reliability. Wojczewski said Evotec expects 2026 to be a transition year and indicated the company anticipates the DMPD market stabilizing and starting to recover in the second half of 2026.
About Evotec (NASDAQ:EVO)
Evotec SE (NASDAQ:EVO) is a global biotechnology company headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, specializing in drug discovery and development partnerships. The company leverages its integrated discovery platforms to support pharmaceutical and biotech clients in advancing novel therapies from target identification through preclinical development.
Evotec’s service offering encompasses high-throughput screening, bioanalytics, combinatorial chemistry, structural biology, pharmacology, and computational drug design.
