Galapagos Extends Its Collaboration with Amgen Throughout 2006
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Galapagos has announced that its services division BioFocus has extended its drug discovery collaboration with Amgen for biology, computational/medicinal chemistry services and supply of biologically-directed library compounds for Amgen's ion channel lead discovery programs throughout 2006.
Under the terms of the extended agreement, Galapagos' service division BioFocus will continue to provide Amgen with drug discovery expertise for multiple ion channel targets, including assay development, high throughput screening, chemistry and molecular informatics.
In return, Galapagos will receive an upfront fee of $2.3 million as a prepayment of FTE costs.
Additionally, Galapagos may receive compensation in the form of library and technology access fees, research fees, milestone payments, and bonuses.
Should all clinical and commercial events on a program be achieved, potential of event-dependent payments may exceed $30 million.
The initial collaboration, announced in January 2003, involves the identification of lead candidates against multiple ion channel targets.
The modulation of ion channels is potentially important in the treatment of a wide range of diseases including cardiovascular and neurological disorders.
"BioFocus and Amgen have forged a strong collaborative relationship over the years, and we expect that the integration of BioFocus with Galapagos will bring together the full suite of target- and drug-discovery capabilities to Amgen's drug discovery programs," said Onno van de Stolpe, Chief Executive Officer of Galapagos.
