LEIDEN, The Netherlands and MECHELEN, Belgium, Jan. 20, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) --Galapagos announced today that Boehringer Ingelheim has successfully used Galapagos' SilenceSelect(tm) gene knock-down platform to identify a number of genes that were shown to influence viral replication in human cells. Under the terms of an agreement made in October 2003, licensing of these potential targets will trigger a milestone payment to Galapagos. Further financial terms were not disclosed.
The SilenceSelect(tm) collection is offered by Galadeno, Galapagos' genomics services unit. The adenoviral collection contains siRNA knock-down sequences targeting over 4,000 human drugable transcripts, where drugable represents those gene classes of most value for pharmaceutical development. "We are very pleased with the results from the collaboration with Galapagos, and look forward to pursuing our studies on these potential antiviral targets," said Michael Cordingley, VP of Research at Boehringer Ingelheim's virology research center in Laval, Quebec, Canada. "This collaboration proves that the SilenceSelect platform works not only in the hands of Galapagos, but performs equally as well in the hands of our customers. In addition, we are pleased this confirms that our approach is also applicable in infectious diseases," said Dirk Pollet, Galapagos' VP Business Development. "Time after time, our target discovery platform delivers for our partners, opening significant opportunities for continued collaboration."
About Boehringer Ingelheim
The Boehringer Ingelheim group is one of the world's 20 leading pharmaceutical companies. Headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, it operates with 152 affiliates in 45 countries and more than 34,000 employees. Since its founding in 1885, the family-owned company has been committed to researching, developing, manufacturing, and marketing novel products of high therapeutic value for human and veterinary medicine.
In 2003, Boehringer Ingelheim posted net sales of 7.4 billion euro while spending more than one fifth of net sales in its largest business segment, Prescription Medicines, on research and development. Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd. is the virology research center for the Boehringer Ingelheim group of companies, focusing on HIV and HCV research at its Laval, Quebec facility.
For further information about Boehringer Ingelheim, please visit www.boehringer-ingelheim.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, Celgene, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Vertex and Wyeth. Galapagos was founded in 1999 by Crucell (Nasdaq:CRXL) (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.