Graham Dixon joins the company having held the position of Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at both Entomed in France and F2G in the UK. Dixon will be responsible for directing the target selection and drug discovery research at Galapagos.
Galapagos is progressing into a new phase whereby it is developing drugs based on its proprietary drug targets in core disease areas and building the necessary drug discovery infrastructure.
The appointment comes hot on the heels of Galapagos decision in September to create a new business unit for its viral based discovery and validation service. The unit, Galádeno, has formed the centre of Galapagos drug discovery efforts, which are based on programs built around proprietary targets. Currently, Galádeno offers both individual adenoviral based siRNA and full-length gene reagents for drug target discovery and validation.
The introduction of the Galadeno unit underlies the outlook within the industry indicating that technology platform companies should make the transition to in-house product development in order to ensure their long-term success.
Galádeno will continue to offer its unique human primary cell based functional screening platform to partners who wish to apply genome-wide siRNA and cDNA screening to novel target discovery and drug mechanism of action studies.