Galapagos NV announced that the first clinical centers have been opened for enrolment in the Phase 2 clinical study in Crohn's disease with GLPG0634, a selective JAK1 inhibitor. The Phase 2 study will evaluate the efficacy and safety of GLPG0634 during 20 weeks of treatment in 180 patients with active Crohn's disease. GLPG0634 is the first selective JAK1 inhibitor in development for Crohn's disease.

The innovative design of the Phase 2 study with GLPG0634 will evaluate induction of disease remission and explore early maintenance of its beneficial effects, potentially enabling a rapid entry into Phase 3 studies. Galapagos will fund and conduct the Phase 2 study in Crohn's disease, recruiting patients in approximately 49 clinical centers throughout Western and Eastern Europe. Upon successful completion of the Crohn's study, AbbVie will pay Galapagos $50 million.

The Phase 2 study in Crohn's disease will be performed in parallel with the Phase 2B program for GLPG0634 in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which includes two dose-finding studies of 24 weeks of treatment in 875 moderate to severe RA patients refractory to methotrexate, and an open label extension study. Galapagos expects to report 12-week topline data from the Phase 2B RA program in fourth quarter 2014, and 24-week data in first quarter 2015. AbbVie has the exclusive right to license GLPG0634 upon completion of the Phase 2B RA studies.