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Galapagos NV (EBR:GLPG) Mechelen, Belgium; 5 November 2008 - Galapagos NV (Euronext: GLPG) announces today that it has completed the sale of its BioFocus DPI chemistry facility in San Diego to ChemVentures Pty Ltd, an Australian discovery research group. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The San Diego facility currently employs 40 people and provides medicinal chemistry and custom library production services to pharmaceutical and biotech customers. ChemVentures intends to retain the employees at the San Diego site. The San Diego operations contributed around $4.8 million to the Galapagos revenues on an annual basis. Galapagos retains its guidance of total revenues of €75-80 million for the year 2008 and a year end cash position of around €25 million.
This site has been part of BioFocus DPI since the acquisition of the Discovery Partners International assets by Galapagos in July 2006. Over the past 18 months, Galapagos has been executing a worldwide operational excellence program to optimize the number of services locations and to create a cost-effective BioFocus DPI organization. This program has resulted in the closure of the London site upon the out-licensing of predictive drug discovery databases to the EMBL, roll up of the Heidelberg (Germany) activities into our Basel operation, and the consolidation of the Cambridge (UK) activities into the BioFocus DPI headquarters in Saffron Walden (UK). The divesture of the San Diego operation will improve the operational margin of BioFocus DPI going forward.
With today's transaction, Galapagos now completes the integration of BioFocus DPI's activities worldwide. Going forward, BioFocus DPI operates sites in the UK (medicinal chemistry, biology services and compound libraries), USA (compound management), Switzerland (natural products and high throughput screening) and the Netherlands (target discovery and assay development).
"The decision to sell our San Diego site followed a thorough operational review of BioFocus DPI. We concluded that we are in a position to serve our customer base very well for medicinal chemistry and compound libraries out of our UK facility. By divesting the San Diego operation, we can improve our margins through reduced overhead and enhanced efficiency," said Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos. "This transaction is further proof that we are committed to focussing on the strengths of our services business."
The BioFocus DPI Compound Management facility in South San Francisco forms no part of the transaction, and it will continue to operate and be fully staffed. This facility has grown its business significantly, signing major contracts with the NIH, EPA, Allergan, and Sepracor.
Galapagos management were advised in the transaction by Burrill LLC out of San Francisco.
About Galapagos and BioFocus DPI Galapagos (Euronext Brussels: GLPG; Euronext Amsterdam: GLPGA; OTC: GLPYY) is a drug discovery company with pre-clinical programs in bone and joint diseases and bone metastasis. BioFocus DPI is a global drug discovery services organization created from the combined services assets of Galapagos, BioFocus, Discovery Partners International, Inpharmatica, and Sareum. It 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 ADMET database products to select targets and compounds. After the divestment of the San Diego unit, Galapagos employs about 450 people and operates facilities in six countries, with global headquarters in Mechelen, Belgium. More information about Galapagos and BioFocus DPI can be found at www.glpg.com and www.biofocusdpi.com.
About ChemVentures ChemVentures utilizes its medicinal chemistry expertise and computational chemistry expertise in the discovery and optimization of pre-clinical drug candidates. By integrating leading-edge technology and innovative science, ChemVentures delivers consistently superior research products and services to the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and life science enterprises. ChemVentures partners with its clients to accelerate and improve the creation of novel drug candidates for clinical studies. CONTACT Galapagos NV Onno van de Stolpe, CEO Tel: +31 6 2909 8028 ir@glpg.com
ChemVentures Pty Ltd Dan Harvey Tel: +1 858-228-4191 dan.harvey@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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