William
Garth
Rapeport joins Galapagos’ Board of Directors
Mechelen, Belgium;
3 June 2008 – Galapagos NV (Euronext: GLPG) announced
today that its Annual General Shareholders’ meeting
approved Dr. William Garth Rapeport’s appointment
to the Board of Directors of Galapagos.
Dr. William Garth Rapeport
is CEO of RespiVert Ltd and Honorary Principal Research
Fellow at the National Heart & Lung Institute (NHLI),
Imperial College School of Medicine in London. Dr. Rapeport
graduated in medicine and subsequently undertook postgraduate
training and research at the Universities of Glasgow and
Oxford respectively. In 1988 he joined Pfizer Central Research
in Sandwich, UK, where he was involved in the early discovery
and development of a wide range of new compounds. Dr. Rapeport
moved to GlaxoWellcome in 1996 as Worldwide Director of
Clinical Pharmacology. Following the GlaxoSmithKline merger,
Dr. Rapeport was appointed Senior Vice President for the
Centre of Excellence in Respiratory and Inflammatory Diseases.
During this time approximately 25 candidate molecules were
selected for development and several of these have entered
mid and late-phase clinical development. In November 2006,
Dr. Rapeport co-founded Respivert Ltd with Professor Peter
Barnes from the NHLI, Imperial College. Respivert is based
in London, and is a small molecule drug discovery company
focused on the identification of new treatments for lung
delivery in severe asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis.
Dr. Rapeport’s appointment
as a Board Member is for a period until the 2009 annual
shareholders’ meeting. He is an independent Board
Member and also is appointed as a member of the Audit Committee.
Dr. Rapeport’s appointment
fills the vacancy created by the decease of Board Member
Dr. Barry Ross in April 2008.
About Galapagos
Galapagos (Euronext Brussels: GLPG; Euronext Amsterdam:
GLPGA; OTC: GLPYY) is a drug discovery company with pre-clinical
programs in bone and joint diseases and bone metastasis.
Its division BioFocus DPI offers a full suite of target-to-drug
discovery products and services to pharmaceutical and biotech
companies, encompassing target discovery and validation,
screening and drug discovery through to delivery of pre-clinical
candidates. BioFocus DPI also provides adenoviral reagents
for rapid identification and validation of novel drug targets,
compound libraries for drug screening as well as chemogenomics
and ADMET database products to select targets and compounds.
Galapagos currently employs 450 people and operates facilities
in six countries, with global headquarters in Mechelen,
Belgium. More information about Galapagos and BioFocus DPI
can be found at www.glpg.com
and www.biofocusdpi.com.
CONTACTS
Galapagos
NV
Onno van de Stolpe, CEO
Tel: +31 6 2909 8028
ir@glpg.com
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