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Galapagos expands and extends drug discovery collaboration with Amgen into 2008


WEBWIRE

Mechelen, Belgium; 3 January 2007 – Galapagos NV (Euronext & LSE: GLPG) announced that its service division BioFocus DPI has expanded and extended its longstanding drug discovery collaboration with Amgen through 2007 and 2008. BioFocus DPI will continue to provide biology, computational and medicinal chemistry services and will supply biologically-directed library compounds to Amgen’s discovery programs. Under the terms of the extended agreement, Galapagos will receive an upfront fee of $2.4 million as a payment for 2007 research costs. Additionally, Galapagos may receive compensation in the form of library and technology access fees, research fees, milestone payments, and bonuses.

The initial collaboration, announced in January 2003, involves the identification of lead candidates against multiple ion channel targets. The agreement announced today expands this collaboration to include all classes of targets, including ion channel, GPCR and kinase targets. Additionally, the agreement has been expanded to include the supply of BioFocus DPI’s compound collection comprising 700,000 synthetic small molecules and its proprietary natural product compound collection containing 145,000 pre-purified subfractions, pure natural products, and semi-synthetic natural products.

“The additional breadth and depth gained by BioFocus DPI’s drug discovery offering this year have helped us to expand our strong collaborative relationship with Amgen,” said Onno van de Stolpe, Chief Executive Officer of Galapagos. “We are excited that the potential hits arising from BioFocus DPI’s unique library collections could provide promising lead candidates for Amgen’s discovery programs over the next two years.”

About Galapagos

Galapagos (Euronext Brussels, GLPG; Euronext Amsterdam, GLPGA; London AiM: GLPG) is a drug discovery company with clinical and pre-clinical programs in bone and joint diseases, cachexia, and menopausal hot flashes. Its division BioFocus DPI offers a full suite of target-to-drug discovery products and services to pharmaceutical and biotech companies, encompassing target discovery and validation, screening and drug discovery through to delivery of pre-clinical candidates. BioFocus DPI also provides adenoviral reagents for rapid identification and validation of novel drug targets, compound libraries for drug screening as well as chemogenomics and ADME database products to select targets and compounds. Galapagos currently employs 450 people and operates facilities in eight countries, with global headquarters in Mechelen, Belgium. More information about Galapagos and BioFocus DPI can be found 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.



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