Galapagos changed course earlier this year, announcing it no longer wanted to focus on cell therapy and would seek buyers for this business. After shopping around the assets for months, Galapagos found no one else in the biopharmaceutical sector wants them either.
The strategic review and sale process that started in May yielded a limited number of non-binding offers, most of them from financial investors. None of those offers came with terms or financing that would reasonably support the cell therapy assets’ future, so that business will wind down, the Belgium-based company said Tuesday. The decision followed a comprehensive review that took into account the investment needed to maintain the cell therapy business as well as “evolving market dynamics.”
“Based on this assessment and extensive input from its advisors, Galapagos intends to wind down its cell therapy business,” the company said in the announcement. “This intention to wind down the cell therapy business aims to support a stronger and more sustainable future for Galapagos.”
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Not so long ago, Galapagos envisioned cell therapy as its future. The company aimed to improve on currently available cell therapies, which are made in a multi-step process that involves harvesting a patient’s immune cells and engineering them into targeted cancer fighters in a distant lab — a process that can take a month or more. Galapagos’s approach employs technology that enables manufacturing of these therapies at the point of care or in a centralized location, shortening to about a week the time needed to make and deliver a therapy to a patient.
Galapagos, which began in 1999 as a developer of small molecule drugs for inflammatory disorders, announced in January plans to spin out all of its assets, leaving legacy Galapagos focused on developing cancer cell therapies. The company revised those plans in May, announcing it would seek buyers for all of its assets, including the cell therapy business and its clinical-stage programs. Galapagos would then use its capital to acquire or license clinical-stage drugs in immunology, oncology, and virology. It would also continue a partnership that legacy Galapagos had with Gilead Sciences. Gilead retains an equity stake in Galapagos.
Cell therapy is becoming a hot area for dealmaking. Earlier this month, Bristol Myers Squibb reached a $1.5 billion deal to buy preclinical Orbital Therapeutics. That announcement followed M&A moves by AstraZeneca, AbbVie, and Gilead Sciences. Each of those deals brings in vivo cell therapy platforms and programs that avoid the complexities and infrastructure required of ex vivo cell therapies, including the treatments Galapagos is developing. These deals also offer their big pharma acquirers the opportunity to broaden the reach of cell therapy to the treatment of autoimmune disorders.
Galapagos is not alone in walking away from cell therapies. At the beginning of the month, Takeda Pharmaceutical announced reprioritization of its portfolio would lead to the discontinuation of its cell therapy work. Soon after, Novo Nordisk said it would stop its cell therapy work as part of a broader corporate restructuring.
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The Galapagos board voted unanimously to approve the wind-down of the cell therapy business, with the exception of two directors appointed by Gilead who recused themselves from the vote. Galapagos said it will consider “any viable proposal to acquire all, or part of the cell therapy business” during the wind-down process. Exiting cell therapy will lead to the closure of sites in Leiden, the Netherlands, and Basel, Switzerland, in Europe; Princeton, New Jersey, and Pittsburgh in the U.S.; and Shanghai, China. An estimated 365 employees across those sites will lose their jobs. What remains of Galapagos will maintain its headquarters in Mechelen, Belgium.
As of the end of the first half of 2025, Galapagos reported its cash position was €3.1 billion (about $3.6 billion). That capital will go toward business deals to build a new pipeline under its new management team. In May, the Galapagos board announced industry veteran Henry Gosebruch would succeed the retiring Paul Stoffels as CEO.
Galapagos said the full wind-down of the cell therapy business is expected to result in €100 million to €125 million in operating costs from the fourth quarter of 2025 through 2026, and €150 million to €200 million of one-time restructuring costs in 2026. Galapagos said an updated 2025 cash outlook will be provided with the company’s third-quarter 2025 earnings report in early November.
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