Making Galapagos fit for survival: Stoffels on The BioCentury Show

Galapagos CEO planning additional BD to exploit capabilities in CAR T, biologics

When Paul Stoffels was named CEO of Galapagos a year ago following a series of setbacks, he realized that it was necessary to change the company’s direction and focus. “We went fast because the company needed it,” he said in an interview with The BioCentury Show.

In the wide-ranging conversation, Stoffels also discussed his confidence in the ability of Europe to foster innovation, and reflected on his leadership of global initiatives to develop COVID-19 countermeasures — expressing concern about the lack of trust in vaccines and the lack of investment in pandemic preparedness. 

Describing his first year as CEO of Galapagos, Stoffels said that when he arrived, the company was focused on new targets with small molecules. Given the setbacks it had experienced, he said Galapagos didn’t have the luxury of waiting 15 years for those programs to pan out. It was also pursuing an indication, fibrosis, with unclear targets and few biomarkers.

“We had to revive the company,” Stoffels said.

He is trying to return to growth by focusing on two therapeutic areas, immunology and oncology, and following the acquisition of CellPoint B.V., developing a new platform based on decentralized point-of-care manufacturing of CAR T cell therapies.

Early clinical experience is confirming the hypothesis that rapid CAR T manufacturing platforms that rely on in vivo cell expansion have safety and efficacy benefits over ex vivo cell expansion techniques, Stoffels said. 

Stoffels signaled that more acquisitions are in the works.

Galapagos N.V. (Euronext:GLPG; NASDAQ:GLPG) is “looking at a lot of new business development opportunities and soon, new activities will follow, focusing on the therapeutic areas of oncology and immunology” and exploiting the company’s CAR T capabilities, he said.

“We have a gateway to patients now with our CAR T systems and that attracts a lot of interest from other companies who are looking for an opportunity to bring cell therapies to patients,” Stoffels said.

In addition, the acquisition of Aboundbio Inc. has given Galapagos capabilities that could fuel acquisitions. “We have good research capabilities now in the biological space, so we’ll look at what can we do with bispecifics, maybe in the space of ADCs.”

Stoffels, who served as CSO at Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) prior to his appointment as CEO of Galapagos, also reflected on his experience helping lead the global response to COVID-19.

In addition to leading J&J’s development of a COVID-19 vaccine, Stoffels co-chaired the Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) public-private partnership. The intense collaboration saved millions of lives, he said.

Stoffels acknowledged that the speed of vaccine development dented public trust, but said the concern is unjustified. And he suggested that anti-vaxxers take a look in the mirror or travel to places where inadequate access to vaccines has exposed people to diseases that have been eradicated in affluent countries.

Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines is led by people who have benefited from life-saving pediatric vaccines, Stoffels said. Individuals who protest against vaccines should realize that “vaccines have saved your life 10 times before you could talk.”

“You have to work in Kinshasa for a year and then you know what vaccines mean,” Stoffels, who spent years early in his career treating patients in Africa, said.