The development of small molecule therapies continues at pace with news that Roche is the latest company to license the Galapagos discovery platform to develop new treatments for COPD.

The collaboration with Roche is already beginning to prove successful as it has also been announced that the COPD deal has been expanded and the deal could now be valued at around $570 million. The expansion agreement includes an increased number of antibody targets for investigation.

In addition, Galapagos’ in-house technology has also been licensed by Merck & Co. in 2009 to target new therapies for inflammatory disease. This agreement has successfully triggered milestone payments of $3.6 million, which makes the total value of the deal potentially worth around $253 million to Galapagos.

These revenues will provide a timely boost for Galapagos and provide them with additional resources to continue to identify targets for inflammatory disease.

In addition to early stage deals, Roche effortlessly continues to announce new partnerships for products that are currently marketed for the treatment of COPD. In particular, Roche has announced a co-promotional deal with Nycomed for the marketing and distribution of Daxas, the once-daily tablet for COPD in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Canada.

This will enable Merck to continue to lead the way in the asthma and allergy marketplace.

The strategy of continuing to successfully promote existing therapies whilst maintaining a robust pipeline of new products remains key to long term commercial success.