E-therapeutics reaches 'key milestone' in Galapagos collaboration

Drug discovery specialist E-therapeutics announced on Tuesday that it has reached a key milestone in its collaboration with Galapagos.

The AIM-traded firm said the milestone would result in it receiving a cash payment, after its “successful characterisation” of the mechanism of action of hit compounds identified earlier in the collaboration.

It said the ‘hits’, which were originally identified through E-therapeutics' proprietary computational discovery platform, had been experimentally validated by Galapagos in relevant assays.

The collaboration with Galapagos had achieved its goal of successfully identifying potential therapeutic strategies in a specific area of biology associated with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), the board explained, and potentially other fibrotic indications.

In keeping with previous E-therapeutics projects, the hit rate in identification of active compounds was “several orders of magnitude higher” than industry standard, which the board said further validated the company’s computational biology methods.

E-therapeutics said it had now achieved all pre-agreed near-term milestones, with the future of the identified hits and targets to be determined by Galapagos according to its strategic priorities.

Under the terms of the agreement, E-therapeutics was eligible to receive additional milestone payments through pre-clinical and clinical development, regulatory and commercial milestones.

The company also remained free to explore partnering opportunities in all other areas of biology relating to IPF and fibrosis.

“We are delighted to report significant progress on our collaboration with Galapagos, focused on the identification of both targets and small molecules in IPF,” said chief executive officer Ali Mortazavi.

“This constitutes further recognition of the impact of our computational platform in an area of high unmet medical need.

“Our proprietary drug discovery platform can unlock indications, therapeutic areas and mechanisms that are challenging to carry out discovery in and shed light on complex human biology, significantly increasing the efficiency of the research and development process at the foundational stages.”

At 1306 BST, shares in E-therapeutics were up 1.13% at 26.8p.