Galapagos Brings Oncology Focus to Central NJ
In Princeton’s own backyard, a company is finding the next generation of cancer-fighting medicine.
Galapagos NV is a Belgian biotechnology company focused on research and development in small molecule medicines, cell therapies, and biologics to treat unmet medical needs in oncology and immunology.
Last fall, it opened a new 15,000-square-foot office at 650 College Road East, Princeton, following a grand opening on November 13 attended by the company’s CEO, Dr. Paul Stoffels.
Stoffels took over as CEO in April 2022, while also joining as chair of the board of directors. He brought an extensive history of leading innovative pharmaceutical companies and drug development, particularly for infectious diseases in developing parts of the world.
Paul Stoffels, a former Johnson & Johnson executive, is the CEO of Galapagos NV. Photo by Frank Van Delft.
As a young student in Belgium, Stoffels was interested in classical music and medicine but stuck with the latter since he wanted to do something useful for the world, he said. He was motivated to pursue tropical medicine, so he spent multiple months treating infectious diseases in Central Africa during school holidays.
Stoffels realized the huge medical need in Africa while completing his nursing training. He quickly stepped into the role of physician fulfilling vaccine, prevention, and surgery services.
“I thought it was going to be a great contribution of personal satisfaction to do that, but then I ended up in the [HIV epidemic],” Stoffels said.
The HIV epidemic hit Sub-Saharan African countries the hardest and continues to be a battle for the region. Having finished his clinical training, Stoffels worked for four years in the area, three in Congo and one in Rwanda. Stoffels eventually felt a calling to find a treatment for HIV after coming face-to-face with the devastating effects of this incurable disease.
This was when he met Paul Janssen, the founder of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, which had been acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 1961. Janssen asked Stoffels to work on his team in opportunistic infections and HIV medicine because of his extensive experience with the disease.
For the first few years, Stoffels said, every drug they made failed because they did not properly understand the disease.
“You learn from your failures and the experience you bring to an organization,” Stoffels said. Stoffels left Janssen following these learning experiences and co-founded two biotech companies with Belgian pharmacologist Rudi Pauwels. Tibotec and Virco started with five people before growing to a 300-400-person workforce over the course of five years. They focused research on HIV/AIDS treatments, notably using high-throughput screening, a method of using scientific equipment to test thousands of samples rapidly.
Stoffels found his way back to J&J when the company acquired Tibotec-Virco in April 2002 and merged it into its Janssen Pharmaceuticals department. The team then worked on testing HIV resistance and screening compounds that might prove effective, eventually leading to a breakthrough in grasping how the virus worked and making major contributions to HIV medicines.
Stoffels rose in J&J, transitioning from global head of pharmaceuticals to worldwide chair of pharmaceuticals to chief scientific officer. He retired after serving more than 25 years at the company but was not done with the industry yet.
“It is in every disease you try to solve in medicines. First, you have to have the scientific capability and strength. To do that, you have to have know-how on how [to] take this disease out of the patient, [whether] it is TB, HIV, oncology tumor, or all the diseases,” Stoffels said. “The next step is always how can you make it as simple as possible so that it can be used by as many as possible people. And that is what we try to do.”
Galapagos was born from a joint venture by biotechnology companies Crucell and Tibotec.
Co-founder and long-time CEO Onno van de Stolpe led the company for 22 years before retiring in 2022 following a series of bumpy quarters.
Starting in 1999 with a handful of employees and a dream to “pioneer for patients,” it now boasts more than 500 employees across the globe, including France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, various United States offices, and the United Kingdom.
In 2019, Galapagos partnered with pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences in a 10-year global research and development collaboration agreement. This partnership also stipulated a combined development, marketing, and commercialization effort for Filgotinib, a drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Under Stolpe’s reign, Filgotinib was approved for medical use in the European Union and Japan but was rejected by the FDA over testicular toxicity concerns.
When Stoffels took over Galapagos in 2022, the company’s share value had dropped, and they had to “restart,” according to Stoffels.
The newly appointed CEO said he wanted to focus the company solely on oncology and immunology since it is difficult for a smaller institution to work in multiple areas.
“The big dream is first targeting diseases that don’t have a therapy today so that we still can add to the medical armamentarium and we can solve another five, six, seven diseases. Then it’s getting access,” Stoffels said.
Galapagos is pivoting its resources and teams to a new age of cell therapy which is a rapidly progressing treatment in the medical industry.
On January 8, the company announced that it would be modifying its arrangement with Gilead and splitting into two distinct entities: a spin-off company not yet named that will focus on innovative therapies for unmet medical needs, and Galapagos, which will focus exclusively on its oncology program.
Galapagos uses a cocoon technology to produce cancer-fighting T cells.
CAR T-cell therapy is a type of immunotherapy that extracts patients’ T cells to be genetically modified for locating and destroying cancer cells more effectively. Galapagos uses a decentralized cell therapy manufacturing platform, meaning distribution and production are completed at different sites, enabling broader patient care access and less delay for patients who live in more remote locations.
In addition to using a software program powered by Cellpoint, a biotechnology company acquired by Galapagos, this platform uses a “cocoon” to produce T cells. As the name implies, these oval-shaped capsules simply look like a white dome but function as a highly contained and sterile environment for cell manipulation with real-time monitoring on the inside.
Stoffels said biological manufacturing is a very complex process that requires quality and frequent testing. He said they are the developers of the process and instruments used.
Stoffels said Galapagos’ Pittsburgh research team is working on a next-generation CAR T-cell therapy that will potentially have a longer duration of effect on patients and prevent cancer relapse. They hope to have this new product in the clinic for testing by the end of next year.
The Galapagos Princeton office focuses on clinical trials and establishing a CAR T-cell network that would eventually produce cancer therapies. With the office recently opened, Stoffels said everyone is enjoying settling into the new place. Researchers, developers, and others bustle around desks and meet in rooms named after notable Princeton-connected talents such as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein.
Stoffels lived in Princeton while he worked at Janssen and values the connections made possible there. He cited the many pharmaceutical, financial, and cancer centers in the area while also being near cities like Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston, where there is access to talent and resources. Working in person is easier with collaboration and brainstorming, Stoffels said, and many people at the new location were hired from Princeton.
“That’s basically us with a big ambition to become a contributor to cancer care … And go for diseases which still need [treatment options],” Stoffels said. “It’s very nice training next generation of people or bringing in young people that can grow up and become the next industry leaders.”
Galapagos Princeton, 650 College Road East, Suite 2000, Princeton 08540. www.glpg.com.
