E-therapeutics enters collaboration deal with Galapagos

(Sharecast News) - E-therapeutics has entered a collaboration agreement with Galapagos to identify new therapeutic approaches to modulate a specific mechanism involved in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), and potentially in other fibrotic indications, it announced on Wednesday.
The AIM-traded firm said it would still be free to explore, both internally and with additional partners, all other pathways involved in IPF and fibrosis.

It said the collaboration would combine its expertise in network biology and in silico phenotypic screening, with Galapagos' knowledge of IPF and fibrosis.

E-therapeutics said it would apply its proprietary 'network-driven drug discovery' (NDD) platform and know-how to identify new strategies to modulate a specific pathway of interest to Galapagos, selecting potentially clinically relevant compounds for the treatment of IPF and fibrosis.

As part of the collaboration, e-therapeutics said it would be responsible for all computational activities, and Galapagos will perform all experimental testing.

Under the terms of the agreement, e-therapeutics would receive upfront and near-term payments material to its cash position, and would also be eligible to receive preclinical and clinical development and commercial milestone payments.

"We look forward to working with Galapagos on this project in areas of clear unmet medical need such as IPF and fibrosis," said executive chairman Ali Mortazavi.

"This collaboration provides additional validation of our platform and its applications in drug discovery and development."

Mortazavi said the company's platform was scalable, and could be applied to all areas of biology, providing an engine for diverse drug discovery projects and enabling it to help partners in a number of ways.

"This is our third collaboration with a leading biopharmaceutical company, and we remain in business development discussions for both NDD and our functional genomics platform, GAINs."

At 0915 BST, shares in e-therapeutics were up 2.57% at 17.95p.