Mechelen, Belgium; 3 January 2007 - Galapagos NV (Euronext & LSE:
GLPG) announced that its service division BioFocus DPI has expanded
and extended its longstanding drug discovery collaboration with Amgen
through 2007 and 2008. BioFocus DPI will continue to provide
biology, computational and medicinal chemistry services and will
supply biologically-directed library compounds to Amgen's discovery
programs. Under the terms of the extended agreement, Galapagos will
receive an upfront fee of $2.4 million as a payment for 2007 research
costs. Additionally, Galapagos may receive compensation in the form
of library and technology access fees, research fees, milestone
payments, and bonuses.
The initial collaboration, announced in January 2003, involves the
identification of lead candidates against multiple ion channel
targets. The agreement announced today expands this collaboration to
include all classes of targets, including ion channel, GPCR and
kinase targets. Additionally, the agreement has been expanded to
include the supply of BioFocus DPI's compound collection comprising
700,000 synthetic small molecules and its proprietary natural product
compound collection containing 145,000 pre-purified subfractions,
pure natural products, and semi-synthetic natural products.
"The additional breadth and depth gained by BioFocus DPI's drug
discovery offering this year have helped us to expand our strong
collaborative relationship with Amgen," said Onno van de Stolpe,
Chief Executive Officer of Galapagos. "We are excited that the
potential hits arising from BioFocus DPI's unique library collections
could provide promising lead candidates for Amgen's discovery
programs over the next two years." |
