MECHELEN, Belgium and LEIDEN, The Netherlands, Nov. 30, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Galapagos announced today that Graham Dixon has been appointed Chief Scientific Officer (CSO). Dr. Dixon will be responsible for directing the target selection and drug discovery research at Galapagos. As a result of the progress that the company has made in target identification and validation over the past five years, Galapagos is progressing into a new phase whereby it is developing drugs based on its proprietary drug targets in core disease areas and building the necessary drug discovery infrastructure.
"We are delighted that Graham has joined Galapagos as a key member of our executive team," stated Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos. "Graham brings significant pharma experience to the organization that will be essential for progressing our drug discovery research." Before joining Galapagos, Dr. Dixon held the position of CSO at both Entomed in Strasbourg, France and F2G in Manchester, UK. Prior to his position at F2G, Dr. Dixon spent eight years at AstraZeneca, holding various management positions within research and development at the Alderley Park site in the UK. Dr. Dixon holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Swansea, UK and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Swansea and King's College (London).
"I am looking forward to leading Galapagos into its drug discovery phase," said Dr. Dixon. "The company has already proved that its adenoviral-based genomics platform is successful in validating targets, now we have the exciting challenge of developing disease-modifying drugs that act via these targets."
About Galapagos Genomics NV
Galapagos is a genomics-based drug discovery company with programs in osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, Alzheimer's disease and asthma. Proprietary targets and compounds resulting from Galapagos' programs are both developed internally and selectively out-licensed. Galadeno, Galapagos' services unit, provides reagents and functional screens to leading pharmaceutical, biotech and nutraceutical companies for rapid identification and validation of novel drug targets. Galapagos currently employs 70 people, including 22 PhD's, and occupies a discovery research facility in Mechelen, Belgium, and a reagent and services business unit in Leiden, The Netherlands. Partners include Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Celgene, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Vertex and Wyeth. Galapagos was founded in 1999 by Crucell (Nasdaq, Euronext: CRXL) and Tibotec to exploit Crucell's unique PER.C6(R) technology for target discovery. The shareholders include Abingworth, Apax, Burrill, AlpInvest, Crucell and Tibotec-Virco.
More information about Galapagos can be found at www.galapagosgenomics.com.
-0- Galapagos Onno van de Stolpe, CEO +31 6290 980 28 onno@galapagos.be