Published on November 26, 2009 at 6:07 AM
Galapagos NV (Euronext: GLPG) announces that its antibody therapeutics program with MorphoSys and SARM program have been awarded funding by the French governmental organization OSEO. Accordingly, the Paris-based Galapagos R&D center will receive interest free loans from OSEO worth EUR 1.2 M over the next two years. Galapagos will use the loans to help fund the pre-clinical development of SARM candidate drug GLPG0492 for cachexia and the antibody alliance with MorphoSys.
The Galapagos-MorphoSys antibody alliance also has been awarded the innovation label (E! 5036 GALASYS) by EUREKA, a European network that enhances European competitiveness through international collaboration. With the EUREKA label, Galapagos received the no-interest loan from the French governmental organization OSEO to help fund its part of the alliance. The EUREKA label recognizes the partners' combined cutting-edge capabilities to generate novel antibody therapeutics, a rapidly growing market currently worth over EUR 20 billion. Galapagos and MorphoSys are developing fully human antibodies, which are recognized as the next generation of therapeutic antibodies.
"This attractive financing that our Paris-based R&D center has received from OSEO will support two highly innovative programs which we otherwise would have had to finance internally," said Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos. "Both of these programs are on-track, with the SARM candidate drug scheduled to enter the clinic early next year."
SOURCE: Galapagos NV