Galapagos loses partner on inflammatory bowel drug

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian biotech group Galapagos said on Tuesday that its research partner Janssen Pharmaceutica, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, had pulled out of a program to develop a new drug to treat bowel disease. Galapagos said it had received all rights to the GPR84 inhibitor program which included the drug GLPG1205 and said it would continue with a phase 2 study of its own on patients with inflammatory bowel disease ulcerative colitis. The group gave no financial details about the transaction. It still has a string of drugs developments in its pipeline with pharmaceutical groups such as AbbVie, GSK and Servier. (Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)