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Galapagos, Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics, Netherlands Institute for Brain Research and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam cooperate

19 Sep 2005 - Galapagos, Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics B.V. (AMT), the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research (NIBR), and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA) announce their collaboration to develop innovative treatments for acute spinal cord and peripheral nerve damage (neurotrauma). The research collaboration will combine the cutting-edge expertise of four Dutch organizations and will be funded in part by a 2 million Euro grant from the Dutch governmental organization Senter.
 
The project will focus on developing innovative therapeutics to promote nerve regeneration and to diminish the effect of neural scarring, one of the main causes for the failure of the traumatically injured spinal cord and peripheral nerve to regenerate. According to the terms of the collaboration, Galadeno, Galapagos' partnering division, will provide access to its functional genomics platform on a fee-for-service basis. Access to this technology will enable the partners to discover protein targets involved in regeneration of injured nerve tissue.
 
Once these targets have been identified, AMT will further develop novel technologies based on their gene therapy platform. NIBR will use its expertise in neuroregeneration as well as micro-array technology and the VUA will contribute its state-of-the-art capabilities for analyzing nerve cell growth to further develop the therapeutics.