BioFocus DPI Achieves Milestone in Its Drug Discovery Collaboration With UCB, Inc.

Saffron Walden, UK (4 December 2012) – BioFocus announced today the achievement of a major development milestone under their provision of medicinal chemistry services agreement with UCB. In August 2008, BioFocus and UCB entered into a drug discovery and development agreement to identify next generation treatments for severe diseases. Under the agreement UCB transferred a team of chemists, from its previous Cambridge (UK) research site, to BioFocus. Together with additional BioFocus staff and UCB scientists, this team then continued their medicinal chemistry work on the UCB program taking compounds towards the candidate selection stage.

Under the original agreement milestone payments became due when the program achieved certain development goals, and BioFocus is pleased to announce that a substantial milestone payment has been paid by UCB appropriate to the progression of the program.

“This milestone payment from UCB demonstrates BioFocus’ ability to support its client projects through to success,” said Chris Newton, Senior Vice President, Galapagos Services. “This innovative collaboration allows UCB to progress their program externally while applying the specific project expertise that UCB had already built internally”.

Neil Weir, Senior Vice President of Discovery, UCB, and Chair of the Innovation Board of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said: “We are pleased with BioFocus’ contribution and our achievement in reaching this milestone. Collaborations like this one with BioFocus are a foundation of UCB’s strategy and we believe advances towards new therapies can be accelerated by combining our expertise in discovery science with a wide network.”

Contacts

Media enquiries

Katie Odgaard

Zyme Communications

Tel: +44 7787 502 947

Email: katie.odgaard@zymecommunications.com

At BioFocus:

Chris Newton

Tel: +44 1799 533 500

Email: chris.newton@glpg.com

About BioFocus

BioFocus provides integrated drug discovery that delivers pre-clinical drug candidates in all therapeutic areas with strong capability in neurodegenerative diseases, inflammatory diseases and with a growing track record of delivering candidates against rare and neglected diseases. BioFocus has advanced and comprehensive drug discovery capabilities that are applied to client projects to deliver targets, hits, leads and candidate pre-clinical drugs. The company employs over 200 exceptionally qualified and industry experienced scientists at its research centers in the UK and the Netherlands. Since its foundation in 1997, BioFocus has striven to produce high quality data for its clients and this quality is assured by ISO9001 qualification validated by regular, independent inspection of all BioFocus research centers. More information can be found at www.biofocus.com.

BioFocus® is a trademark of Galapagos NV and/or its affiliates © Copyright 2012 Galapagos NV.

Back to news