Galápagos enters into license deal with VIB and KU Leuven for development of medicine against inflammatory and oncological diseases

This new partnership builds on the small molecule MALT1 protease inhibitors jointly identified and developed by CD3 and VIB and is based on the world-leading expertise at VIB on MALT1. The VIB teams of Thijs Baens and Peter Marynen at VIB-KU Leuven, and Rudi Beyaert at VIB-UGent have an extensive track record in high-impact publications on MALT1. They identified MALT1 as an important regulator of the NF-κB signaling pathway and demonstrated its potential as a drug target for inhibition of its proteolytic activity in the treatment of auto-immune disorders and certain types of cancer.

For the MALT1 program, VIB and CD3 have now exclusively partnered with Galapagos, a leading, global biotechnology company with deep expertise in drug development in inflammatory diseases. Galapagos will continue the development of the MALT1 inhibitors towards clinical application in a number of therapeutic indications, supported by a broad collaboration with key opinion leaders at VIB, and the drug discovery capabilities at VIB’s Discovery Sciences and CD3.

Johan Cardoen, Managing Director of VIB comments: “We believe this is a landmark deal for VIB and yet again proves VIB’s long-term commitment to translating our scientific insights into value-creation and novel therapies to improve patients’ lives. We’re extremely pleased that Galapagos, one of the prime biotech companies emerging from Flanders’ life sciences hotspot, will pursue this asset with its deep expertise in drug discovery and development. We’re confident that matching the globally excelling expertise of VIB, CD3 and Galapagos puts this program in a pole-position to achieve major patient impact.”

“It is great to be able to partner this very exciting MALT1 program with Galapagos and to further collaborate with VIB and Galapagos on the development of the promising compounds”, says Patrick Chaltin, Managing Director of CD3 at KU Leuven. “This agreement emphasizes once again that early innovative academic science can be turned into valuable assets for biotech and pharma, thanks to CD3’s co-creation model, in which we collaborate with excellent academic research groups to develop new innovative drugs.”