Galapagos is very convinced in its work on developing new cancer cell therapies that it fixes its future on them. Over the past winter, the Belgian drugmaker announced a plan to remove the rest of the company as a standalone business, while traditional Legacy Galapagos will focus on its new approach to manufacturing and delivering automotive T-cell therapies. Now, it is stopping the derivative plans and instead exploring strategic alternatives to everything, including cell therapy.
Galapagos said Tuesday a reassessment of planned business separation following unspecified “regulatory and market developments.” The company is not over. However, by exploring business transactions for its existing business assets, the Galapagos Board of Directors aims to maximize the financial resources that companies can deploy to “transformative business development transactions.”
Founded in 1999, Galapagos was initially committed to the development of small molecule drugs for inflammatory diseases. In recent years, the company has changed courses through transactions, giving it access to cell therapy technology. These technologies enable companies to perform cell therapy manufacturing at or near care sites, a dispersed approach that designs and expands patients’ cells in remote laboratories, a multi-step that can take a month or more.
The most advanced Galapagos cell therapy program is GLPG5101. Although Galapagos produced encouraging early clinical data for this therapy in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the company then chose mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) as a lead indicator. A potentially critical clinical study is planned to begin in 2026.
MCL is a competitive sign that earlier this year, the susceptibility of Astrazeneca BTK inhibitors was used as a new frontline treatment for this rare hematologic cancer. Eli Lilly’s Jaypirca, also a BTK inhibitor, has accelerated FDA approval as a third-line MCL treatment. As for cell therapy, FDA’s 2020 approval of Tecartus makes Gilead Sciences Cell Therapy the first CAR T-therapy for MCL. About a year ago, Bristol Myers Squibb’s Breyanzi extended his tag to a third-line treatment that includes MCL.
Spinco is not conceived as a way to develop and commercialize non-cellular therapies for the Galapagos pipeline. When Galapagos announces the derivative plan announced, it will seek partners or deals for clinical immunologic drugs and their preclinical assets. Spinco will combine cash from these transactions with €2.45 billion (approximately $2.5 billion) from the capital of Galapagos to obtain or license clinical-stage drugs in oncology, immunology and virology.
A few weeks ago, the derivatives seemed to be on schedule. Galapagos announced that its CEO Paul Stoffels will retire after a second year appointing his successor, with biopharmaceutical industry veteran Henry Gosebruch being named Spinco’s new CEO. The company said in its report on its first quarter financial results for 2025 that derivatives are still occurring in the mid-2025.
Galapagos said Tuesday that its board of directors had appointed Gosebruch immediately to become the company’s CEO and later retired Stoffels. Gosebruch is now responsible for finding strategic alternatives to Galapagos’ assets and forge amazing deals to build new pharmaceutical pipelines. As of the end of the first quarter of this year, Galapagos reported its cash position of 3.3 billion euros (about $3.7 billion).
For Leerink Partners analyst Faisal Khurshid, the change in Galapagos is of course acknowledging that it is impossible to maintain independent companies on its automotive T platform alone. Given logistical challenges and limited clinical differentiation with evidence of already available cellular therapies, Leerink has a cautious view of the cell therapy platform.
“Although we wait for other details about the next step, we think this may be enabled [Galapagos] Further pursuit [business development] “A innovative pipeline has been established, which may attract investors’ attention. We believe that this move is acknowledgement by Tacit that independent companies focused on the platform will be sustainable from the perspective of investors’ interests and financing capabilities.”
Photo: nakao Yuriko, Getty Images
