Friday 10 September 2010

Argenta expands collaboration with Genentech to include BioFocus

Argenta, a service division of Galapagos NV, announced today it has signed a contract extension with Galapagos NV, a member of the Roche Group. The extended agreement expands the portfolio of projects which are in collaboration with Genentech and allows Genentech to place projects directly into Galapagos’ other service division, BioFocus.

Argenta’s collaboration with Genentech dates back to 2005. The current agreement covers a number of drug discovery programs that utilize Argenta's expertise in computer-aided drug design (CADD), medicinal chemistry, and in vitro biology and screening to discover new chemical entities acting against undisclosed drug targets defined by Genentech. Under the amendment announced today, BioFocus will provide Genentech with integrated medicinal chemistry, in vitro biology and ADME services.

BioFocus aims to expand its partners’ drug pipelines by accelerating the gene-to-drug candidate discovery process. This is achieved through a comprehensive discovery platform, which includes target discovery in human primary cells, focused as well as diverse compound libraries, in vitro and cell-based screening, structural biology, medicinal chemistry, ADME/PK services, supported by unique chemogenomic and informatics tools, and compound library acquisition, storage and distribution services.

Argenta