Boehringer Ingelheim licenses drug targets from autoimmune collaboration with BioFocus DPI

BioFocus DPI announced today that Boehringer Ingelheim has exercised its right to license two drug targets from their autoimmune research agreement. This will result in a milestone payment for BioFocus DPI.

This is the second milestone reached in this three-year collaboration, initially announced in January 2006. In the collaboration, BioFocus DPI applied its SilenceSelect^® shRNA-based gene collection to run a target discovery screen for Boehringer Ingelheim’s autoimmune discovery research. BioFocus DPI obtained upfront fees, research and development funding and will receive milestone fees when certain drug discovery criteria are met. Should all criteria on a target be achieved, total potential contract value for BioFocus DPI may exceed €2 million per target.

“We are delighted that targets identified through our shRNA screening approach have met Boehringer’s selection criteria,” said Onno van de Stolpe, Chief Executive Officer of Galapagos. “This is further testament that the target discovery research performed by BioFocus DPI meets the standards of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies.”