BioFocus will apply Galapagos’s proprietary adenoviral platform to identify novel drug targets for the development of cancer therapies. The goal of the new collaboration will be to discover and validate novel targets in the field of oncology. BioFocus will perform assay development, screening of the SilenceSelect and FLeXSelect adenoviral libraries, and target validation.
BioFocus will receive an upfront payment of E2.9 million. In total, BioFocus may receive additional research, acceptance, license and development fees of up to E7.6 million should certain predetermined criteria be achieved.
Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos, said: “This marks BioFocus’s first target discovery agreement in oncology, as well as the largest target discovery agreement to date for the service division.”