Galapagos in oncology discovery accord with Janssen

Mechelen, Belgium-based Galapagos NV has announced a new two-year target discovery collaboration between Janssen Pharmaceutica, a Johnson & Johnson company, and BioFocus DPI, Galapagos' service division, in the field of oncology. BioFocus will apply Galapagos' proprietary adenoviral platform to identify novel drug targets for the development of cancer therapies.

The goal of the new collaboration will be to discover and validate novel targets in the field of oncology. BioFocus will perform assay development, screening of the SilenceSelect and FLeXSelect adenoviral libraries, and target validation. Target discovery in cutting edge in vitro assays may provide novel drug targets for cancer areas with an unmet medical need. BioFocus receives an upfront payment of 2.9 million euros ($4.2 million). In total, BioFocus may receive additional research, acceptance, license and development fees of up to 7.6 million euros should certain pre-determined criteria be achieved.