Galapagos NV Awarded Grant To Accelerate Drug Discovery
MECHELEN, BELGIUM--(Marketwire - February 11, 2009) - Galapagos NV (Euronext: GLPG) announces today that it has been awarded a EUR 837,000 grant from the Flanders government through the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT). Galapagos will elucidate the structure of novel drug targets and related small molecules in its bone & joint disease portfolio.
The two-year project "Drug discovery for bone and joint protection: structural biology for novel targets and their inhibitors" focuses on Galapagos' novel drug targets and the candidate drugs that bind to these targets. This information will help Galapagos to design potent and selective drugs and thus potentially improve their efficacy to treat bone and joint diseases. Galapagos will collaborate on this project with the renowned Structural Biology Brussels group at the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB).
"This grant gives us an opportunity to collaborate with the VIB's top structural biology group, thereby adding to our drug discovery capabilities," said Graham Dixon, SVP Drug Discovery for Galapagos. "Through this research we aim to progress our understanding of these novel drug targets and accelerate the development of candidate drugs for bone & joint diseases."
About Galapagos
Galapagos (Euronext: GLPG; OTC: GLPYY) is a drug discovery and development company with small molecule programs in bone and joint diseases, bone metastasis, cachexia, anti-infectives and metabolic diseases. It has established risk sharing alliances with GSK, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Eli Lilly and Merck. Through an alliance with MorphoSys, Galapagos is also developing new antibody therapies in bone and joint diseases. Its division BioFocus DPI offers a full suite of target-to-drug discovery products and services to pharmaceutical and biotech companies and to patient foundations, encompassing target discovery and validation, screening and drug discovery through to delivery of pre-clinical candidates. Galapagos currently employs 470 people and operates facilities in six countries, with global headquarters in Mechelen, Belgium. More info at: www.glpg.com.
About the Structural Biology Brussels Lab
The Structural Biology Brussels Lab, headed by Jan Steyaert was founded by Lode Wyns in the seventies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and is one of the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology departments. The understanding of the function of a protein, from its structure to its dynamics, remains the central theme of the lab. The multidisciplinary team of about 40 researchers is housed in new laboratory facilities and combines extensive expertise in biophysics and molecular biology. More information at: www.structuralbiology.be.
CONTACT Galapagos NV Graham Dixon, SVP Drug Discovery Tel: +32 473 86 87 51 ir@glpg.com
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