Galapagos Award For Drug Discovery Chemistry

Galapagos (Euronext & NASDAQ: GLPG) is a commercial-stage biotechnology company specialized in the discovery and development of small molecule medicines with novel modes of action. Galapagos’ mission is to make a lasting positive contribution to society through discovery of innovative therapies for diseases with large unmet medical need. Galapagos’ historic focus on developing first-in-class medicines based on the discovery of novel targets in inflammation and fibrosis has led to the successful launch of our first medicine in rheumatoid arthritis in 2020 and in ulcerative colitis in 2021. Galapagos is now entering an exciting new chapter to expand and diversify its pipeline for the future, starting with oncology, specifically CAR-T cell-therapy, a transformative treatment of different types of cancer.

In partnership with the French Medicinal Chemistry Society SCT, Galapagos has decided to award a talented team of researchers contributing to a scientific discovery and /or substantial therapeutic innovation. Specific emphasis will be given to the notion of drug discovery chemistry where combined disciplines, among for example molecular modeling, in silico approaches, chemistry, chemical-biology, biology or ADMET can contribute to the achievement of the team’s objectives. This contribution may arise from the any phase of research and the aim of this prize is to nominate a talented team.

2023 Recipient

The SCT and Galapagos are proud to announce that Galapagos Award for Drug Discovery Chemistry has been attributed to Pr. Philippe Karoyan (Sorbonne University, FR). Philippe is professor at Sorbonne Université, Paris, head of DRUGLab and co-founder of X-Pharma.
As a chemist, biologist and pharmacologist, Philippe's research interests lie at the interface of these disciplines, with a focus on the design, discovery and optimization of novel therapeutic peptides towards drugs with broad applications for oncology and virology, : prophylactic peptide against SARS-CoV2 and TSP-1 peptide mimic with anti-tumor effect.
He receives the award from Sandrine Vedeville (Galapagos) and JY. Ortholand (Président, SCT) during the 57th RICT in Lille.

In 2022, Galapagos and Société de Chimie Thérapeutique have decided to award a talented team of researchers contributing to a scientific discovery and /or substantial therapeutic innovation.

Specific emphasis will be given to the notion of drug discovery chemistry where combined disciplines, among for example molecular modeling, in silico approaches, chemistry, chemical-biology, biology or ADMET can contribute to the achievement of the team’s objectives.

This contribution may arise from the any phase of research and the aim of this prize is to nominate a talented team.

The “Galapagos Award for integrated medicinal chemistry” (5000 €) is given during the International Conference on Medicinal Chemistry (RICT*), an annual SCT meeting, by a Galapagos company representative and the SCT president.

The candidate’s team should be based in Europe and the members have to accomplish their duty as SCT member by paying their membership by credit card on the SCT website to be eligible.
The “Galapagos Award” jury members select the laureate among the candidates.
By accepting the award, the laureate team representative agrees to present a plenary lecture at the next RICT meeting or a SCT (co)-organized event in case RICT meeting cannot take place.

Candidacies should be emailed to the SCT secretary, as well as to the SCT president, .
The candidates or candidate team representative should provide a short pdf document (font: Arial 12, space between lines: 1.15) describing their project with an emphasis of the integration of the various disciplines contributing to science, including the state of art, the context and the exceptional added value of the integrative approach in medicinal chemistry, the potential impact on the downstream phases, the perspectives.
This has to be accompanied with the bibliographic references.
In addition, a short CV of the team members should be added.
The total length of this document (Contribution+Refs+CV) should not exceed 10 printed pages.

Galapagos Award for Drug Discovery Chemistry Recipients

2023: Pr. Philippe Karoyan (Sorbonne University)
2022: Dr. Olivier Defert, candidate team representative (BioVersys), Dr. Michel Pieren (BioVersys), Pr. Nicolas Willand (Université de Lille), Dr. Alain Baulard (Institut Pasteur de Lille/Inserm), Dr. Modesto Remuinan (GSK).