Lakefront Biotherapeutics—the new name for Belgium’s Galapagos Therapeutics—has found a buyer for its unwanted cell therapy pipeline via a roundabout route.
After a convoluted period for the biopharma, Galapagos decided last year to scrap its cell therapy work and focus on developing an autoimmune T-cell engager (TCE) from Ouro Medicines that it received courtesy of Gilead Sciences.
The fate of Galapagos' cell therapy programs remained uncertain—until now. The assets have been snapped up by fellow Belgian biotech Armed Cell Therapeutics (ACT) in a back-loaded deal comprising 8 million euros ($9 million) upfront and up to $230 million in milestone payments. ACT has been set up by Galapagos' former CEO Paul Stoffels.
In return, ACT is getting its hands on a preclinical portfolio that includes “multi-targeting and armed CAR-T constructs designed to improve the potency and persistence of CAR-Ts and prevent cancer treatment resistance in hematological and solid tumors of high unmet need,” the companies explained in an Oct. 15 release.
The plan is for ACT to independently advance these programs.
“I’m pleased we were able to complete this sale of the early-stage cell therapy programs as it provides a path to continue to advance these assets on behalf of patients,” Lakefront’s Chief Business Officer Sooin Kwon said in a statement.
“Lakefront continues to be in an enviable position with a rich legacy of innovation, an exciting newly established pipeline of T-cell engagers and a strong cash balance,” Kwon added.
The cell therapy programs can trace their origins back to AboundBio, which Galapagos acquired for $14 million back in 2022 for the Pittsburgh biotech’s fully human antibody-based library and biological drug discovery and engineering capabilities. The original plan was for Galapagos to take three next-generation CAR-T candidates from AboundBio’s library into clinical trials over the next three years.
But those plans had unravelled by October 2025, when Galapagos backed out of the cell therapy space only 10 months after planning to focus on this modality while spinning off another company to “build a pipeline of innovative medicines.”
Galapagos’ new CEO Henry Gosebruch, who took over from Stoffels, explained to Fierce in November 2025 that Galapagos had tried to ship its cell therapy pipeline around to “all the strategic players,” but “none of them had an interest to really go look at our business in a serious way.”
Faced with limited options, Galapagos decided to wind down the cell therapy business, which was expected to affect about 365 employees across Europe, the U.S. and China. Two facilities in the U.S., as well as one site each in the Netherlands, Switzerland and China, were also scheduled for closure. Galapagos took a 228 million euro ($269 million) financial hit from the closure.
Instead, Galapagos received backing from Gilead—which owns 25% of the biopharma—to seek out clinical-stage assets in the immunology or oncology spaces. In March, Gilead served up Ouro’s BCMAxCD3 TCE to Galapagos—which rebranded to Lakefront—after Gilead bought Ouro outright for $1.67 billion with the expectation Galapagos would cover half of this upfront cost.