Galapagos achieves milestone in osteoporosis collaboration with Lilly

Mechelen, Belgium - Galapagos NV (Euronext: GLPG) announced today that it has reached a milestone in its osteoporosis collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY), triggering a payment of €2.5 million from Lilly.

In December 2007, Lilly and Galapagos initiated an alliance to develop new medicines for the treatment of osteoporosis. The agreement provides Lilly access to 12 of Galapagos’ novel target based programs in osteoporosis, with Galapagos responsible for the development of drug candidates through to Phase IIa clinical Proof of Concept. The milestone announced today is the result of one of these programs reaching the next phase of medicinal chemistry optimization. To date, Galapagos has received a total of €3.9 million in milestone payments from Lilly under the alliance.

“We remain on-track in the osteoporosis alliance with Lilly,” said Onno van de Stolpe, Galapagos’ CEO. “Through milestone payments such as the one announced today, we are able to finance the progression of multiple osteoporosis drug candidates toward the clinic.”

About osteoporosis
Osteoporosis is principally an age-related disease, when hormone levels essential for maintaining bone density decline. The development of osteoporosis is characterized by a clinically significant reduction in bone density. The disease is four times as common in women as men. The enormous health care costs associated with osteoporosis, estimated at $15 billion per year in the USA alone, are related to the greatly increased incidence of fractures in osteoporosis patients.

About Galapagos
Galapagos (Euronext: GLPG; OTC: GLPYY) is a drug discovery and development company with small molecule programs in bone and joint diseases, bone metastasis, cachexia, anti-infectives and metabolic diseases. It has established risk sharing alliances with GSK, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Eli Lilly and Merck. Through an alliance with MorphoSys, Galapagos is also developing new antibody therapies in bone and joint diseases. Its division BioFocus DPI offers a full suite of target-to-drug discovery products and services to pharmaceutical and biotech companies and to patient foundations, encompassing target discovery and validation, screening and drug discovery through to delivery of pre-clinical candidates. Galapagos currently employs 490 people and operates facilities in six countries, with global headquarters in Mechelen, Belgium. More info at: www.glpg.com.

This release may contain forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements containing the words “believes,” “anticipates,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “seeks,” “estimates,” “may,” “will,” “could,” “stands to,” and “continues,” as well as similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements may involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which might cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of Galapagos, or industry results, to be materially different from any historic or future results, financial conditions, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Given these uncertainties, the reader is advised not to place any undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of publication of this document. Galapagos expressly disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements in this document to reflect any change in its expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based, unless required by law or regulation.