FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - News of a cyber attack before the Easter holidays weighed on Evotec 's mood on Tuesday. After a weak start, the stock gradually extended its losses and most recently lost 7.3 percent to 18.66 euros, making it one of the biggest MDax losers. It also slipped just below the 21-day line, which is considered a technical trend indicator for the short-term price development.

On Wednesday - one day before the attack - Evotec had reached 20.34 euros, its highest level since mid-September. Since the beginning of the year, the share price has still gained about 22 percent, making Evotec 2023 one of the better performers in the index of medium-sized German companies so far. Now, some investors apparently took advantage of the news to take profits.

According to the pharmaceutical drug researcher, it had been attacked on Thursday. As a result, systems were shut down and disconnected from the Internet for security reasons to prevent data breaches and data corruption. The Hamburg-based company now wants to find solutions to ensure that the complete range of services continues to be available to partners.

In recent months, Aurubis, Continental and SAF Holland, among others, were also targeted by hackers./gl/jha/