Wyeth has exercised its right to license three bone anabolic drug targets from a 2003 osteoporosis research agreement with
Galapagos, resulting in a $1.4 million milestone payment to Galapagos.
This is the second milestone reached in the osteoporosis collaboration. Galapagos has applied its osteoporosis disease expertise to discover and validate novel drug targets for Wyeth. In November 2004, Wyeth selected a set of these targets for internal validation.
Under the terms of the 2003 agreement, Galapagos could receive milestone payments of as much as $40.4 million from the collaboration. The targets involved in the Wyeth collaboration are unrelated to the validated targets in Galapagos' osteoporosis program.
"Wyeth licensing targets identified by Galapagos speaks to the strengths and uniqueness of our target discovery approach," said Onno van de Stolpe, chief executive officer of Galapagos. "The expertise which led to this milestone with Wyeth also forms the basis for our own portfolio of novel targets in osteoporosis."