Galapagos’ service companies, BioFocus and Argenta, have entered into a multi-year collaboration agreement with AstraZeneca to find new compounds against key targets of interest to AstraZeneca’s research programmes in respiratory and inflammatory diseases.

Under the terms of the collaboration, each AstraZeneca project will engage the medicinal chemistry, biology and ADME/PK capabilities of either BioFocus or Argenta, and will also be able to access the full suite of in vivo respiratory pharmacology models which reside within Argenta.

Financial details were not disclosed.

“Both BioFocus and Argenta have worked extensively with AstraZeneca over the past 10 years, and this new collaborative agreement brings enormous capability and experience to each AstraZeneca project we work on. We are delighted to renew our new drug discovery alliance with one of the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical companies,” added Dr Chris Newton, SVP Galapagos Services.

“We continue to be impressed by the strength of the BioFocus and Argenta technology platforms and the evident depth of experience of the scientists that will be engaged on our projects addressing respiratory and inflammatory conditions”, said Dr John Steele, VP R&I Innovative Medicines Science Unit at AstraZeneca.

BioFocus provides integrated drug discovery that delivers pre-clinical drug candidates in all therapeutic areas with strong capability in neurodegenerative diseases, inflammatory diseases and with a growing track record of delivering candidates against rare and neglected diseases.

Argenta’s contract research, which includes expertise in medicinal chemistry, computer-aided drug discovery, in vitro biology, analytics, in vivo pharmacokinetics, pharmacology and world-leading respiratory models, has a strong reputation for scientific excellence.

AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven biopharmaceutical business with a primary focus on the discovery, development and commercialisation of prescription medicines for gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, neuroscience, respiratory and inflammation, oncology and infectious disease.