Galapagos lands its largest deal to date in €400M alliance with Roche

Collaboration

Galapagos announced a potential €400 million alliance with Roche to develop treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

The Belgian company will apply its target discovery platform to discover novel COPD targets and will then be responsible for the discovery and development of new small molecule candidate drugs against these targets.

Roche has an exclusive option to license each small molecule programme once a clinical candidate is selected or on completion of Phase I clinical trials. In addition, Roche has the option to license the targets for the discovery and development of antibodies.

This is a very early-stage deal, with much time and work needed for Galapagos to translate the headline value into hard cash. Helping the company on its way is an upfront payment of €6 million from Roche.

“This alliance with Roche on discovering novel COPD targets demonstrates the versatility of Galapagos’ target discovery platform in identifying novel targets across a wide range of therapeutic areas. We are excited that this collaboration will focus on both antibodies and small molecules as potential drugs for COPD,” said Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos. “Roche’s vast experience in developing and commercialising antibodies makes it the perfect partner for this combined approach.”