London, UK, and Mechelen, Belgium, April 29, 2003 – Inpharmatica Ltd a leading informatics-driven drug discovery company, and Galapagos Genomics NV, the Belgian functional genomics company, today announced that they have entered into a drug discovery collaboration.
Under the terms of the collaboration, Inpharmatica will use its unique chemogenomics technology platform, PharmaCartaTM, to determine the druggability of targets selected by Galapagos in its internal disease programs. Galapagos will provide Inpharmatica access to its PhenoSelectTM adenoviral expression platform for a subset of Inpharmatica’s novel nuclear receptors. Inpharmatica will use the adenoviral technology in its in-house programmes to further validate and prioritise these receptors as targets for drug development. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“We are delighted to be working with Inpharmatica and to have access to its ground breaking chemogenomics technology platform, PharmaCarta(TM). This will enable us to rapidly progress our most tractable targets into drug discovery,” said Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos. “We are also very pleased that Inpharmatica has joined the growing number of companies that have chosen to use our adenoviral gene expression technology to further characterise their portfolio of novel targets.”
“Galapagos’ unique PhenoSelect(TM) technology will enable us to efficiently functionally characterize and therefore prioritise our portfolio of novel nuclear receptors,” said Inpharmatica’s CEO, Dr. Malcolm Weir. “This collaboration further reflects the increasing demand for access to PharmaCarta(TM) and the growing recognition of the enormous benefits of using a unified chemogenomics platform, based on comprehensive and expert data analysis and interpretation, and powerful informatics, to drive the gene- to- drug discovery process.”
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Notes to Editors:
Galapagos Genomics NV: http://www.galapagosgenomics.com/
Galapagos Genomics is a privately held company headquartered in Mechelen, Belgium. The Company has built a functional genomics platform using arrayed adenoviruses containing human gene sequences. It’s knock-in PhenoSelect and knock-down SilenceSelectTM collections are in an arrayed format that enables high-throughput screening using cellular assays. Galapagos is using its technology platform for the discovery and validation of proprietary drug targets and for partnering with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. It’s research programs focus on three disease areas: Alzheimer’s disease, bone/joint diseases and psoriasis. The Company currently employs 94 people, including 22 PhD’s, and occupies a 2000 sq.m. research and production facility in Mechelen, with additional research laboratories in Leiden, The Netherlands. Galapagos’ current partners include Bayer, Degussa, Euroscreen, Exelixis, Incyte, Johnson&Johnson, Organon, Pharmacia, Procter&Gamble, UCB Pharma and Vertex. The shareholders are Abingworth Management, Apax Partners, Burrill&Company, NIB Capital Private Equity, Crucell Holland BV (Nasdaq, Euronext: CRXL) and Tibotec-Virco NV.
Inpharmatica : www.inpharmatica.com
Inpharmatica Ltd is a leading informatics-driven drug discovery company. It has developed two technology platforms, PharmaCarta and Biopendium(TM), which analyse proteome-scale information to predict the function and druggability of drug targets and progress them in drug discovery through the in silico selection of drug like molecules. Both platforms utilise the massive computing power of Inpharmatica’s 2,500- processor compute farm, one of the largest in the world.
Founded in 1998, Inpharmatica is based on research from Professor Janet Thornton’s group at University College London. Employing approximately 100 staff, Inpharmatica is headquartered in London and has its own in-house laboratory facilities. These laboratory facilities provide experimental validation of in-silico discoveries, enabling Inpharmatica (and its strategic partners) to advance novel drug targets identified through its application of PharmaCarta(TM) and to develop novel drugs against those targets.
Inpharmatica operates a hybrid business model with three distinct components:
i. Internal discovery programs for long-term value generation;
ii. Application of PharmaCarta to research programs of collaborators, generating mid-term value through research payments, milestone payments and royalties; and
iii. Biopendium licensing to generate near-term revenues.
These components are outlined further below:
Internal Drug Discovery is focused upon discovering, validating and finding leads against highly druggable targets mined from the human genome, and has resulted in the company filing patents over more than 200 novel proteins to date. The company’s lead discovery program is focused upon the development of 16 novel nuclear receptors (“NR’s”). NR’s are a family of proteins widely considered to be both druggable and of high therapeutic interest. Drugs targeted against NR’s generate more than $10bn in sales annually. Inpharmatica’s novel NR’s represent a more than 30% increase on those identified in the public domain.
PharmaCarta is the Company’s knowledge-based chemogenomics technology platform which drives the discovery process from gene to drug candidate. Inpharmatica applies PharmaCarta both in collaboration with third parties and for internal drug discovery. The Company concluded its first PharmaCarta collaboration, for the identification of novel protein therapeutics, with Serono in July 2001, a collaboration that was further expanded in January 2003. In February 2003 the Company concluded a further PharmaCarta collaboration with Chiron.
Biopendium is the Company’s proteome annotation resource, accessed by partners through commercial license. It is the world’s most comprehensive annotation resource; enabling rapid high throughput annotation of large datasets for target prioritisation, target mining and microarray analysis. Inpharmatica’s multi-year non-exclusive subscription collaborators include Pfizer, Genentech, Serono and Daiichi. Inpharmatica also has a joint venture with Celera to develop a special edition of the Biopendium that incorporates Celera’s proprietary genomic data (Celera Edition Biopendium).
Contact details:
Inpharmatica
Inpharmatica Ltd Tel: +44 20 7074 4600
Dr Malcolm Weir, Chief Executive Officer
Dr Vimal Mehta, Sr. VP Business Development
Buchanan Communications Tel: +44 20 7466 5000
Lisa Baderoon / Nicola How
Galapagos Genomics
Onno van de Stolpe, Chief Executive Officer Tel: +32 15 342 900
Dr. Dirk Pollet, VP Business Development
The announcement can also be downloaded from the enclosed link.