Galapagos and Merck & Co., Inc. agree to end strategic alliances

Merck pays Galapagos €12 M for results delivered in 2010

07-Feb-2011 - Belgium

Galapagos NV announced that it has regained worldwide rights for all assets developed in its strategic alliances with Merck & Co, Inc. (known as MSD outside the United States and Canada) through an affiliate, and that the alliances will end.  Merck will make a payment of €12 million to Galapagos for work completed in 2010.

Including the payment of €12 million, Galapagos will have received a total of €20.9 million in upfront and milestone payments derived from the alliances.  Galapagos has regained worldwide rights to the targets discovered and assays developed from the collaboration.

"In the alliances with Merck, we have discovered promising targets and developed target discovery assays for diseases with considerable unmet medical needs.  Galapagos now owns these valuable assets which can form the basis for future alliances," said Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos.  "The work delivered to Merck last year also made a strong contribution to Galapagos' financial results in 2010."

"Changes in our early discovery strategy have required us to make some challenging decisions," said Kathleen Metters, Senior Vice President, External Discovery and Preclinical Sciences, at Merck.  "We look forward to investigating alternate opportunities to collaborate with Galapagos in the future."

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