Galapagos achieves milestones in strategic alliances with Merck & Co., Inc.
Galapagos NV announced that it has reached milestones in both of its global strategic alliances with an affiliate of Merck & Co., Inc. The achievement of these milestones has entitled Galapagos to receive an aggregate payment of EUR 3.6 million from Merck.
In the alliances, initiated in January and April 2009, Galapagos is responsible for the discovery and pre-clinical development of new small molecule candidate drugs based on novel Galapagos targets in metabolic disease and inflammatory disease. Under the terms of the alliances, Galapagos is eligible to receive discovery, development and regulatory milestone payments that could potentially exceed EUR 590 million total for multiple products, as well as specific sales milestones and royalties upon commercialization of any products covered in the agreements. Together with upfront fees of EUR 4.0 million, Galapagos has received a total of EUR 7.6 million from Merck.
"Less than one year after initiating these alliances with Merck, we have met the first milestones, ahead of schedule. Total payments from all our alliances since June 2006 now exceed EUR 100 million, underscoring the viability of the Company's alliance strategy and business model going forward," said Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos.
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