Galapagos signs $700M+ cancer discovery pact as pipeline rebuild continues

2024-01-03

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并购细胞疗法免疫疗法高管变更

Galapagos added chemoproteomic drug discovery as the next building block of its cancer portfolio refresh, thanks to a deal Wednesday with BridGene Biosciences.

The drugmaker agreed to pay BridGene up to $27 million across upfront and preclinical milestone payments, and the latter is also eligible for more than $700 million in clinical and commercial milestones, plus tiered royalties.

BridGene will use its chemoproteomics platform, IMTAC, to discover compounds to treat cancer. The technology screens tagged, drug-like small molecules from BridGene’s covalent library against all the proteins in live cells to discover candidates for hard-to-drug targets.

The partnership continues Galpagos’ recent portfolio reboot following a series of clinical and regulatory disappointments since the biotech’s peak in early 2020, which have led to an 85% drop in its share price.

Galapagos began reworking its pipeline in 2022 – catalysed by the hire of CEO Paul Stoffels, the former chief scientific officer of J&J – and the biotech has since affirmed its focus on oncology and immunology, while dropping programs in fibrosis and kidney disease. As part of the reboot, Galapagos acquired CellPoint and AboundBio in June 2022, giving it a foothold in next-generation CAR-T therapies. For more, see ViewPoints: Galapagos’ rebuilding plans start with pivot to cell therapy.

Chemoproteomics in the spotlight

Leveraging chemoproteomic platforms for drug discovery have become a more attractive strategy in the past few years, following the success of pioneer Vividion Therapeutics, which launched in 2017 with a chemoproteomic screening platform designed to identify small molecule drugs against traditionally hard-to-drug targets.

In 2021, Bayer acquired Vividion for $2 billion, which heralded several new entrants to the space.

Last January, Belharra Therapeutics closed a $50 million Series A and nabbed $80 million upfront in a deal with Roche's Genentech unit to roll out its chemoproteomics platform.

And in July, Nexo Therapeutics emerged from stealth with a $60 million series A round from investors including Versant Ventures – also a backer of Vividion. For more, see ViewPoints: Versant looks to expand druggable target space with Nexo launch.

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