Our Materiality Assessment

Driven by our purpose to transform patient outcomes through life-changing science and innovation, we recognize that our activities have an impact that reaches well beyond our financial performance.

To determine our key goals and priorities, we conducted a new materiality assessment in 2022, allowing us to identify the topics that are most relevant to our internal and external stakeholders. The analysis also enabled us to capture our current and potential impact on society and the world, and to effectively track areas in view of emerging challenges and opportunities.

To enhance the value of the materiality assessment, we updated the methodology we applied for the 2018 materiality assessment and significantly increased the number of stakeholders participating in the assessment. Externally we engaged with representatives from patient organizations, patient experts, healthcare providers, supply chain partners, our collaboration partners, and investors. Internally, next to the members of our Executive Management and our Sustainability Steering Committee, all Galapagos employees were given the opportunity to provide input regarding the materiality of certain topics through a company-wide survey.

Internal and external stakeholders were invited to review a list of 35 potential material topics and to identify five topics they found most relevant, five topics they found less important for Galapagos and our core mission, and if any topic was missing.

The initial results further confirm the results from previous years with the top three pillars clustered around People, Planet, and Trust & Transparency with one main change: the desire to add a new pillar dedicated to Innovation for Patients.

We therefore adapted our focus areas and the four pillars as presented in the below materiality map.