GlaxoSmithKline said it has inked multi-year strategic alliance deal with Galapagos NV to develop novel anti-infective drug candidates. Galapagos will receive total upfront fees of up to €3.5 million from GSK, depending on the total number of programmes within the collaboration.
Galapagos could be eligible to receive up to €95 million in upfront fees, development and regulatory milestones payments for each product candidate. If a product is commercialised, Galapagos may receive up to €120 million for achievement of specific sales milestones. Galapagos is also eligible to receive up to double-digit royalties on worldwide sales of alliance products.
GlaxoSmithKline will participate in the alliance through its Infectious Diseases Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery (ID CEDD).
Under the terms of the agreement, Galapagos will grant GlaxoSmithKline options to license product candidates that are directed against up to six anti-infective discovery targets. Galapagos will be responsible for the discovery and development of natural product small molecule drug candidates through to clinical Proof of Concept, at which point GSK will have exclusive option to license each compound for further development and commercialisation on a worldwide basis. The alliance will utilise the natural product compound collection and chemistry capabilities of BioFocus DPI, Galapagos' services division. Galapagos will have the right to further develop and commercialise compounds for which GSK does not exercise its option.
"This is our first alliance outside bone and joint diseases. It shows that Galapagos can generate significant business in new therapeutic areas," said Onno van de Stolpe, CEO, Galapagos. "The alliance will rely heavily on BioFocus DPI's natural product discovery capabilities. This alliance fits within our strategy of executing risk/reward sharing deals with big pharma and at the same time underscores our M&A approach and successful integration of DPI into the BioFocus service division."
"Our newly created ID CEDD has been focusing on discovering novel antibiotics and antivirals, and the natural product collections from BioFocus DPI have the potential to address our needs," said Zhi Hong, senior vice president and head, ID CEDD, GlaxoSmithKline. "We recognise the significant unmet medical needs in hospital or community-acquired bacterial infections plus life-threatening viral diseases. It is therefore prudent to explore novel chemical space and targets that offer new prospects for treatments across a range of infectious diseases. Galapagos has been a productive collaborator for GSK in the existing osteoarthritis alliance, and we are confident this new alliance based on natural products will contribute to the advancement of our drug discovery and development programmes in infectious diseases."
Infectious diseases are caused by pathogenic micro-organisms such as bacteria, viruses, parasites or fungi. The diseases can be spread, directly or indirectly, from one person to another. Infectious diseases are a leading cause of death worldwide. Existing therapies against infectious diseases currently account for an estimated €45 billion in annual global sales. The need for new therapies is on the rise due to increasing resistance of micro-organisms to available therapies.
Natural products represent a major source of new medicines, as nearly half of all new drugs brought to market in the last 20 years are derived from compounds of natural origin. With their unique organic characteristics, natural compounds are especially important for drug development against certain target classes. BioFocus DPI's natural compound collections are based on bacterial and fungal sources, offering characteristics differentiating these from synthetic chemistry collections, including high chemical and functional diversity, potent pharmacological activities over a broad range of biological targets, and desirable physicochemical properties.
GlaxoSmithKline - one of the world's leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies - is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.
The Infectious Diseases Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery is a global research unit within GlaxoSmithKline Drug Discovery dedicated to discovering therapies for infectious diseases including bacterial, viral and diseases of the developing world such as TB and Malaria. It is designed to integrate and better coordinate the progression of infectious diseases medicines from therapeutic hypothesis to clinical proof of concept. It focuses on building an innovative pipeline through both internal efforts and external alliances with other companies and research institutions and will focus on 'virtualising' a portion of the infectious diseases pipeline by forming multiple risk-sharing/reward-sharing alliances.
Galapagos is a drug discovery company with pre-clinical programs in bone and joint diseases and cachexia. Its division BioFocus DPI offers a full suite of target-to-drug discovery products and services to pharmaceutical and biotech companies, encompassing target discovery and validation, screening and drug discovery through to delivery of pre-clinical candidates.