Roche adds $201M in milestones to Galapagos R&D pact

Belgium's Galapagos has agreed to expand its R&D collaboration with Roche on new COPD drugs, gaining an extra €150 million in milestones as it broadens its hunt for new drugs to treat smoker's lung.

Roche is adding the new set of milestones on top of the €400 million it originally committed to back in January when the two companies formed an alliance to advance new antibodies for the condition. This new deal expands the scope of the alliance to potentially include peptides, siRNA and other nucleic acids.

"We've made a good start in the alliance with Roche," said Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos. "This is the fourth alliance that has been expanded upon the request of our pharma partners and we are particularly pleased that Roche sees the potential of our target discovery platform to identify new antibody drug targets. This expansion increases the chances of the alliance delivering a therapeutic molecule for the treatment of COPD."  

- check out Galapagos' release
- here's the story from Reuters