Galapagos deal on Huntington’s disease with CHDI

Galapagos NV reached an agreement with and CHDI Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organisation set up to promote the development of treatments for Huntington’s disease (HD), to develop novel assays for drug discovery and evaluating known compounds as potentially new treatments for HD.

The total value of the contracts for Galapagos is Euro 0.8 million over 1.5 years.

Galapagos’ service division, BioFocus DPI, will develop a high throughput screening assay in mouse neurons that will enable the identification of compounds that prevent neuronal dysfunction associated with HD. BioFocus DPI will also use of its expertise in profiling and assay development to evaluate known compounds inhibiting certain enzymes playing key roles in HD.

These new programmes continue the collaboration started in August 2005.

Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos said, “With the growing list of patient organisations in the client base, our service division continues to build on its reputation for high quality drug discovery.”