Galapagos
and Dart Neuroscience LLC sign drug discovery and compound
management agreements
Mechelen, Belgium
and San Diego, USA; 9 December 2008 – Galapagos NV
(Euronext: GLPG) and Dart Neuroscience LLC (DNS) announced
today new collaboration agreements in drug discovery and
compound management. Total potential value of the contracts
for Galapagos is €4.1 million (US$5.4 million) over
three years.
Galapagos’ service division, BioFocus DPI, will develop
a cell-based assay for DNS’s drug discovery programs
for brain disorders and perform high-throughput screening
and hit expansion using BioFocus DPI’s compound collections.
Furthermore, BioFocus DPI will carry out compound management
for DNS over the next three years.
“This collaboration maximizes several key BioFocus
DPI strengths: assay development and high-throughput screening
as well as compound libraries and compound management,”
said Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos. “We are
particularly pleased that our compound management facility
in San Francisco continues to help us win new contracts
and clients – we have seen strong progress in development
of this business in 2008.”
“We are confident that BioFocus DPI’s integrated
offering will contribute to advancing our drug discovery
programs focused on various aspects of cognitive dysfunction,”
added Tim Tully, Chief Scientific Officer of DNS.
About Dart Neuroscience LLC
Dart Neuroscience LLC (DNS) is a private Company formed
to discover new technologies and therapeutics to help maximize
cognitive vitality throughout life. DNS will build on research
pursued by the Dart NeuroGenomics Alliance at Cold Spring
Harbor Laboratory from 2002 to 2008 and on a Gene Discovery
Platform Technology recently acquired from Helicon Therapeutics,
Inc. The Company's objective is to attract the world's brightest
scientific minds to discover fundamental improvements in
brain health and cognitive function. More information about
Dart Neuroscience can be found at www.dartneuroscience.com.
About Galapagos
and BioFocus DPI
Galapagos (Euronext Brussels: GLPG; Euronext Amsterdam:
GLPGA; OTC: GLPYY) is a drug discovery company with pre-clinical
programs in bone and joint diseases and bone metastasis.
Its division BioFocus DPI offers a full suite of target-to-drug
discovery products and services to pharmaceutical and biotech
companies, encompassing target discovery and validation,
screening and drug discovery through to delivery of pre-clinical
candidates. BioFocus DPI also provides adenoviral reagents
for rapid identification and validation of novel drug targets,
compound libraries for drug screening as well as ADMET products
to select compounds. Galapagos currently employs 460 people
and operates facilities in six countries, with global headquarters
in Mechelen, Belgium. More information about Galapagos and
BioFocus DPI can be found at www.glpg.com
and www.biofocusdpi.com.
CONTACTS
Galapagos NV
Onno van de Stolpe, CEO
Tel: +31 6 2909 8028
ir@glpg.com
Dart NeuroScience LLC
Tim Tully, CSO
Tel: +1 858 736 3060
ttully@dartneuroscience.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.
