Galapagos NV, said it completed work on a pre-clinical candidate drug in its osteoarthritis alliance with GlaxoSmithKline plc. Galapagos also reached milestones on other compounds involved in the deal, triggering payments totaling €7.6 million. To date, Galapagos has earned a total of €25.5 million under this alliance.
The pre-clinical candidate drug is a small molecule developed by Galapagos against a novel target discovered with the Mechelen-based company’s proprietary discovery platform. The molecule is now ready for scale-up chemistry and safety evaluation, with the aim of entering clinical trials in the next year.
“Today’s milestones are strong evidence of Galapagos’ ability to deliver consistently on its alliances,” said Onno van de Stolpe, CEO. “In the osteoarthritis alliance with GSK we have moved from target to a pre-clinical candidate drug in less than 2.5 years for the lead programme and have multiple additional compounds in progress."
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