Stoffels charts new course for Galapagos with pair of acquisitions

Less than three months into his new role, Galapagos Chairman and CEO Paul Stoffels is taking quick action to shift the company’s strategic focus away from small molecules, a reliance that had dented investor confidence in the biotech over the past two years. A pair of small yet transformative acquisitions will broaden the biotech’s R&D armamentarium beyond its historical focus on small molecules in inflammation to include CAR T therapies and other biologics.

Galapagos N.V. has had its share of ups and downs in the past decade: going from a spurned partner with AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) declining its option for filgotinib in 2015 to parlaying that opportunity into one of the largest biotech collaborations in history, the $5.1 billion deal with Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) in 2019...