WARREN, N.J. and MECHELEN, Belgium and LEIDEN, The Netherlands (PRIMEZONE) -- Celgene (Nasdaq:CELG), a leading global biopharmaceutical company with focus on the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative therapies for unmet medical needs in cancer and inflammatory disease, and Galapagos, Europe's leading target discovery and adenoviral services company, today announced that they have entered into a multi-year target discovery collaboration.Under the terms of the agreement, Galadeno (Galapagos' wholly owned services unit) will provide Celgene with its adenoviral siRNA and cDNA libraries, SilenceSelect(TM) and FLeXSelect(TM).
These libraries enable the knock-down or over-expression of the human drugable genome in human primary cell assays. Celgene will use these libraries across Celgene's research programs to study key disease pathways and identify novel drug targets. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. "Galadeno is unique in the siRNA field right now, due to their in depth experience of not only providing tools, but also applying them in complex biological assays," said Celgene's CSO, Dr. David Stirling. "This expertise, combined with their robust technology platform gives us confidence regarding the discovery prospects for this collaboration." "We are delighted to be working with Celgene which is one of the most exciting biopharmaceutical companies in their field," said Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos. "We are also very pleased that Celgene has joined the growing number of companies that have chosen to use our adenoviral siRNA and gene expression technologies to drive their target and drug discovery effort."
About Celgene Corporation
Celgene, as a leader in global biotechnology, has built an integrated discovery, development and commercialization platform for drug and cell-based therapies that enables the company to continue to develop value within its therapeutic franchise areas of cancer and inflammatory diseases. This target-to-therapeutic platform integrates both small molecule and cell-based therapies and spans the critical functions required to generate a large and diverse pipeline of innovative next generation drugs and cell therapies that address the source of the disease and not just the symptoms. More information on Celgene can be found at www.celgene.com.
About Galapagos Genomics NV
Galapagos is a genomics-based drug discovery company with programs in osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, Alzheimer's disease and asthma. Proprietary targets and compounds resulting from Galapagos' programs are both developed internally and selectively out-licensed. Galadeno, Galapagos' services unit, provides reagents and functional screens to leading pharmaceutical, biotech and nutraceutical companies for rapid identification and validation of novel drug targets. Galapagos currently employs 70 people, including 22 PhD's, and occupies a discovery research facility in Mechelen, Belgium, and a reagent and services business unit in Leiden, The Netherlands. Partners include Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Vertex and Wyeth. Galapagos was founded in 1999 by Crucell (Nasdaq, Euronext: CRXL) and Tibotec to exploit Crucell's unique PER.C6(R) technology for target discovery. The shareholders include Abingworth, Apax, Burrill, AlpInvest, Crucell and Tibotec-Virco. More information about Galapagos can be found at www.galapagosgenomics.com.