In October 2007, Galapagos announced an alliance agreement with Janssen providing Janssen with option rights to acquire worldwide, commercial licenses to novel small-molecules from up to 12 of Galapagos’s internal programs involving rheumatoid arthritis therapeutic targets.
The milestones announced now relate to the achievement of proof of principle for compounds developed against Galapagos targets. The compounds demonstrated a reduction of an inflammatory disease biomarker in inflamed joint tissue cultured from collagen-induced arthritic mice, said Galapagos. Showing a reduction in such a disease marker is an important step in the development of a new drug, indicating that the potential drug can have an impact on slowing or reversing disease.