On behalf of all involved teams, I am thrilled to announce the next step for Galapagos. We are adding a new therapy and disease area to our current portfolio: cell therapy, a potential transformative treatment of different types of cancer. Through the combined acquisitions of CellPoint and AboundBio, we propel ourselves into next-generation cell therapies, while significantly broadening our portfolio and capabilities.
Written by Paul Stoffels, CEO Galapagos
It is my believe that the future of global healthcare will be defined by our collective ability to focus on innovation and to develop new interventions, with the aim of maximizing saving lives. Together, we need to aim for real breakthrough outcomes such as preventing or curing cancer, while keeping in mind that interventions need to be simple and eventually, available to all people in the world. Combining medical technology and biological science will be key to accelerate the progress of medicine, adding years of life and improving quality of life. We aim for Galapagos to play an exciting role in this future. This is where today’s news marks the start of a new chapter for our company.
CAR-T therapy has truly revolutionized existing cancer treatments. Since the first approval in 2017, it has proven to be highly effective and has great potential to save lives across the world. We believe that real difference and access to therapy could come from a disruptive CAR-T manufacturing model at point-of-care, close to patients, combined with innovative science and expert teams.
CellPoint’s novel, decentralized point-of-care cell therapy manufacturing model has the potential to offer fast time to treatment and eliminates complex logistics, thereby addressing important limitations of current CAR-T treatments. Clinical studies in patients with severe blood cancers are ongoing in Spain, The Netherlands and Belgium to validate this disruptive model. Topline results are expected during the first half of 2023.
AboundBio’s cutting-edge fully human antibody-based platform provides access to a research engine for next generation multi-targeting CAR-Ts that have the potential to deliver deeper and durable clinical responses and that will be developed using CellPoint’s decentralized model. AboundBio also brings additional drug modalities to further build on our internal capabilities.
Since the foundation of Galapagos, we have built a strong organization with capabilities and expertise across the full spectrum, from discovery through to commercialization, and we are the proud marketing authorization holder for Jyseleca in Europe. Deploying our end-to-end drug development capabilities and financial resources, we aim to accelerate and broaden access to cell therapies across the world.
Today’s announcement is a first step in our transformation to further strengthen our value proposition, R&D pipeline and capabilities. Alongside this expansion into oncology, we stay committed to our current core areas and are confident we can build on our talented teams. Over the summer, we will map out the strategic steps for our existing research portfolio. We will provide further details later this year.
We are very excited to start this next chapter, to continue to pioneer for patients. A big thank you to all who have been working relentlessly to make this next step a reality. Together, we have one mission: adding years of life and improving quality of life across the world.
Looking forward,
Paul