Galapagos to acquire Inpharmatica

Belgian integrated drug discovery company Galapagos and UK-based Inpharmatica have entered into a definitive agreement under which Galapagos will acquire Inpharmatica in an all-share transaction.

The acquisition price of Inpharmatica is in three components: the ongoing business is valued at Euro 6.5m, the estimated cash at an additional €6m and the potential maximum earn-out related to commercial milestones at €6.6m.

Inpharmatica is a leader in the development and application of powerful, genome-scale predictive products and services for drug discovery research. Its technologies for drug discovery will improve Galapagos's ability to select targets and compounds based on predictive models and expertise. These technologies include ADME services (Admensa), a novel approach to prioritise chemical compounds in drug screening, as well as chemo-informatics services (Chematica) to select the best targets for drugability.

Inpharmatica will become part of BioFocus DPI, Galapagos's drug discovery services business. BioFocus DPI will assume the commercial and scientific management of Inpharmatica, including the execution of all current contracts. As a consequence of the acquisition, the companies anticipate downsizing of Inpharmatica's management, sales and administrative staff. Immediate annualised operational synergies are expected to amount to about €1.5m. As part of the acquisition, Galapagos will obtain certain downstream financial rights to Inpharmatica's internal PPAR-delta program, addressing obesity and diabetes, which has reached the stage of candidate selection.

'Adding proprietary target and compound selection tools to our platform provides an even broader array of drug discovery solutions for both our internal r&d and for our services business,' commented Onno van de Stolpe, ceo of Galapagos. 'It will position our company further for additional turn-key deals ranging from target discovery all the way to clinical proof of concept.'