Osteoarthritis is a challenging therapeutic area where there are currently no marketed disease-modifying drugs.

In January 2009, Galapagos announced that its osteoarthritis program had progressed from validated target to pre-clinical drug candidate in less than 2.5 years. The candidate was developed by Galapagos against a novel target discovered with Galapagos' proprietary platform.

Galapagos and GSK initiated a strategic alliance in osteoarthritis in June 2006. This alliance was expanded in July 2007 to include up to two drug discovery programs on selected GSK targets. In December 2008, the alliance was further expanded to include two additional drug targets.