Galapagos enters a three-year collaboration with Roche

Mechelen, Belgium; 28 March 2006 – Galapagos NV (Euronext & LSE: GLPG), a genomics-based drug discovery company, announced today that Galapagos’ service division, BioFocus, has entered into a three-year collaboration with Roche. This new agreement builds on the successful working history between Roche and BioFocus. Under the terms of the agreement, BioFocus will supply Roche with exclusive chemical compound libraries. Financial terms were not disclosed.

BioFocus will synthesize novel chemical compound libraries based on Roche’s framework structures and provide these collections on an exclusive basis to Roche. These libraries will be generated using a combination of BioFocus’ molecular informatics tools and a wide range of synthetic chemistry capabilities.

BioFocus designs and synthesizes both exclusive as well as non-exclusive (SoftFocus®) chemical compound libraries that can be used in drug discovery programs, including hit finding, lead optimization and patent exemplification.

“We are very pleased with this new agreement to deliver exclusive compound libraries to complement Roche’s drug discovery programs,” said Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos. “With a strong set of design tools and world-class synthetic chemistry capabilities, BioFocus continues to secure new business by providing high-quality libraries to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.”

About Galapagos
Galapagos is a publicly traded, genomics-based drug discovery company (Euronext Brussels, GLPG; Euronext Amsterdam, GLPGA, London AiM: GLPG) that has drug discovery programs based on proprietary, novel targets in bone and joint diseases - osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Galapagos offers a full suite of target-to-drug discovery products and services to pharmaceutical and biotech companies through its division BioFocus, encompassing target discovery and validation, and drug discovery services through to delivery of pre-clinical candidates. In addition, BioFocus provides adenoviral reagents for rapid identification and validation of novel drug targets and compound libraries for screening. Galapagos currently employs more than 210 people, including 80 PhDs, and occupies facilities in Mechelen, Belgium, Saffron Walden, UK and Leiden, The Netherlands. Partners of Galapagos include Amgen, AstraZeneca, BASF, Boehringer Ingelheim, Celgene, GlaxoSmithKline, Idenix, Novartis, Organon, Serono, Vertex, and Wyeth. More information about Galapagos and BioFocus can be found at www.glpg.com.

Contact Information

Onno van de Stolpe

CEO

Galapagos NV

Contact via E-mail