Argenta Discovery

Dear reader,

Today (2nd February 2010), Galapagos announced the purchase of Argenta Discovery’s contract research organization. This company will continue to operate in the same way as before under the name ‘Argenta’. With no management changes and no change to the research staff, customers can be assured of continued full commitment to their programs. Argenta will operate as a Galapagos drug discovery service division. Argenta Discovery’s respiratory development programs will continue as a new privately held company: Pulmagen Therapeutics. Galapagos will have no ownership in Pulmagen.

Galapagos already operates BioFocus, a leading contract service division, headquartered in Chesterford Park, UK. Together, the two companies will provide high quality services to the discovery research communities. The pairing-up of two profitable operations within the financially strong Galapagos Group will further maintain stability and hence credibility in the eyes of our client communities.

Dr. John Montana will continue as Managing Director of Argenta and will be responsible for all Argenta’s operations and Argenta’s sales and marketing activities. He reports to me as Senior Vice President, Galapagos Services.

The dual services business will continue to operate under the separate brand-names, and will be marketed separately. As a number of our clients will know, sometimes in the past both companies have had to decline projects due to existing conflicts of interest. In the future, having two separate organizations will allow us to offer the other organization as service provider and will allow us to fulfil responsibilities to our clients with complete confidence that the IP we are generating for our clients is independently created.

Both BioFocus and Argenta will be able to expand the offering, by obtaining arms-length access to certain IP independent capabilities, such as pre-clinical development (formulation) and PK capabilities at Argenta (for BioFocus clients), and synthetic compound libraries and protein crystallography at BioFocus (for Argenta clients).

I am extremely pleased with Argenta joining the Galapagos Group, and I am sure that both BioFocus and Argenta will flourish in this new situation. We will work hard to continue to provide the excellent quality of work you are used to from both companies, and hope that the expanded offering will be well received by our current and future customers.

Best regards,

Chris Newton

SVP Galapagos Services

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