The Belgian biotech's president, Bart Filius, tells Scrip that exiting the metabolic disease and osteoarthritis space and focusing on inflammation makes sense to "bring a bit more balance in terms of risk into our portfolio."

The Belgian biotech has divested its drug discovery services unit in Croatia which was making a nice profit but was not a priority as Galapagos concentrates on setting up its commercial operations in Europe.

Derived from Strategic Transactions, Informa's premium source for tracking life-sciences deals, the bimonthly Pacts In Medtech feature highlights notable technology alliances, research and development partnerships and commercial collaborations. This edition covers industry pacts that were signed in September and October 2019.

M&A deal activity dropped dramatically in November with a mere six deals in the medtech industry, making November the weakest month of the year so far. The biggest deal of the month recorded was Edward Lifesciences $690m acquisition of Israeli start-up Valtech.