Paul Stoffels left his perch as J&J’s chief scientific officer in 2022 to replace Galapagos’ founding CEO Onno van de Stolpe, inheriting a company that had suffered a series of clinical failures since its 1999 creation.
Paul Stoffels, the former Johnson & Johnson executive who took over as CEO of Galapagos three years ago, is exiting the biotech.
Stoffels leaves as Galapagos separates into two entities, one that will retain the Galapagos name with a batch of cell therapy assets and a separate spin-out company to house €2.45 billion ($2.8 billion) in cash from the biotech’s legacy Gilead partnership. Galapagos announced Stoffels’ departure in an after-market release on Monday. Stoffels will hang on for another 12 months at least, while Galapagos hunts for a replacement, and the board intends to nominate him again for a four-year term as chairman at the 2026 annual general meeting.
Meanwhile, Henry Gosebruch has been named as CEO of the spin-out company, currently named XYZ SpinCo, that will soon separate from Galapagos.
When Stoffels left his perch as J&J’s chief scientific officer in 2022 to replace founding CEO Onno van de Stolpe, he inherited a company that had gone through a series of clinical failures since its launch in 1999. Stoffels vowed to turn Galapagos around in five years with an aggressive approach to M&A to replace the failed clinical programs.
Galapagos has now pivoted to cell therapy, thanks to the acquisitions of CellPoint and Abound Bio executed by Stoffels in 2022. But the company is far from achieving a complete turnaround, with its lead clinical program only in Phase II. In February, Galapagos shifted more resources behind lead CD19 CAR T candidate GLPG5101 while deprioritizing other programs.
“I am proud to have transformed Galapagos into an R&D-driven biotech company with a clear focus on oncology,” Stoffels said in a statement.
But the Belgian company has also attracted the attention of Kevin Tang, who has recently purchased more than 5% of Galapagos’ shares through his different firms. Tang has now emerged as an activist investor. Also the owner of biotech buyout firm Concentra Biosciences, Tang is known for his bold moves to buy up failing biotechs and quietly shut them down.
As for the SpinCo, Gosebruch will take over a massive bundle of cash that is earmarked for building out a new pipeline of medicines. Specifically, the company will be on the hunt for assets with proof-of-concept data and the potential to beat standard of care options. Gosebruch, who has a deep history of dealmaking, will be charged with executing one or more transactions.
Gosebruch was previously CEO of neuroscience biotech Neumora. Before that, he helped execute more than 100 business development transactions at AbbVie as chief strategy officer. He was involved in AbbVie’s $63 billion acquisition of Allergan and the partnership for Skyrizi, now one of the pharma’s best-selling medicines.
“Henry is the right leader to take on the CEO role for SpinCo as he leverages his extensive experience and the strong balance sheet to build an exciting pipeline,” Andrew Dickinson, Gilead’s CFO, said in Monday’s press release.
The SpinCo is an effort from Gilead to find some value in the long-term partnership with Galapagos that was worth more than $5 billion. Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day admitted in January that the Galapagos deal had not turned out as intended, after his leadership team was initially swayed by Galapagos’ scientific platform.
