Galapagos announces natural compounds collaboration with LEO Pharma
November 01 2006 - 1:28AM
UK Regulatory
Mechelen, Belgium and Ballerup, Denmark; 1 November 2006 - Galapagos
NV (Euronext & LSE: GLPG) announces a first collaboration with
privately-held LEO Pharma, a leader in dermatology treatments and
critical care. BioFocus DPI, Galapagos' service division, will use a
subset of its natural compound collection for high throughput
screening, hit verification, and profiling of selected compounds for
LEO Pharma's antibacterial research program. In return, Galapagos
stands to receive up to �400,000 in project fees and up to �3 million
in milestone payments. Galapagos may also receive royalties on sales
of commercial products resulting from the collaboration.
Today's agreement with LEO Pharma marks Galapagos' first for its
natural compound collection, acquired with the drug discovery
activities of Discovery Partners International in July 2006. It
focuses on the discovery of new antibacterial agents using specific
targeted screens. Screens for new antibiotics are particularly
appropriate for natural product discovery.
"We are pleased with this new collaboration in many ways. Not only
do we initiate a relationship with LEO Pharma, but we also confirm
the interest from the market for our newly-acquired natural compounds
collection and technologies by landing this high-value deal within
only a few months after closing the DPI transaction," said Onno van
de Stolpe, Chief Executive Officer of Galapagos.
"We at LEO Pharma are delighted to enter into this collaboration with
BioFocus DPI and expect that gaining access to their significant
repository of natural product subfractions will strengthen our
antibiotic drug discovery program. We trust this will be the start
of a successful and long term arrangement to discover new
pharmaceutical natural products," said Dr. Tore Duvold, Vice
President for Drug Discovery at LEO Pharma.
BioFocus DPI natural compounds
Natural compounds are a major source of new medicines, as nearly half
of drugs brought to market in the last 20 years originated from
compounds derived from nature. With their unique organic
characteristics, natural compounds are especially important for drug
development against certain target classes. BioFocus DPI's natural
compound collections are based on bacterial and fungal sources,
offering characteristics differentiating these from synthetic
chemistry collections, including high chemical and functional
diversity, potent pharmacological activities over a broad range of
biological targets, and desirable physicochemical properties.
About Galapagos
Galapagos is a publicly traded, genomics-based drug discovery company
(Euronext Brussels, GLPG; Euronext Amsterdam, GLPGA, London AiM:
GLPG) that has drug discovery programs based on proprietary, novel
targets in bone and joint diseases - osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and
rheumatoid arthritis. Galapagos offers a full suite of
target-to-drug discovery products and services to pharmaceutical and
biotech companies through its division BioFocus DPI, encompassing
target discovery and drug discovery services through to delivery of
pre-clinical candidates. In addition, BioFocus DPI provides
adenoviral reagents for rapid identification and validation of novel
drug targets and compound libraries for drug screening. Galapagos
currently employs more than 330 people, including 144 PhDs, and
operates facilities in seven countries, with global headquarters in
Mechelen, Belgium. More information about Galapagos and BioFocus DPI
can be found at www.glpg.com.
About LEO Pharma
LEO Pharma A/S is a research-based, fully integrated pharmaceutical
company among the world's leading players in dermatology and critical
care. The foundation-owned company is headquartered in Denmark,
employs 3,000 people in 40 countries and markets its products in 90
countries. Further information about LEO Pharma can be found at
www.leo-pharma.com.
CONTACT
Galapagos NV
Onno van de Stolpe, CEO
Tel: +31 6 2909 8028
ir@glpg.com
LEO Pharma A/S
Adam Estrup
Director, Corporate Communications
Tel: +45 72 26 23 53
adam.estrup@leo-pharma.com
This release may contain forward-looking statements, including,
without limitation, statements containing the words "believes,"
"anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans", "seeks," "estimates,"
"may," "will," "could," "stands to," and "continues," as well as
similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements may involve
known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which might
cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or
achievements of Galapagos, or industry results, to be materially
different from any historic or future results, financial conditions,
performance or achievements expressed or implied by such
forward-looking statements. Given these uncertainties, the reader is
advised not to place any undue reliance on such forward-looking
statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the
date of publication of this document. Galapagos expressly disclaims
any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements in this
document to reflect any change in its expectations with regard
thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which
any such statement is based, unless required by law or regulation.
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Copyright � Hugin ASA 2006. All rights reserved.
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