Committees

Onno van de Stolpe founded our company in 1999 and has served as our Chief Executive Officer and a member of our board of directors from 1999 to the present. From 1998 to 1999, he was the Managing Director of Genomics at IntroGene B.V. (later Crucell N.V., which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc. in 2011). Prior to joining IntroGene in 1998, he was Managing Director of Molecular Probes Europe B.V. He established the European headquarters after joining Molecular Probes, Inc. in the United States. Previously, he worked for The Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency in California, where he was responsible for recruiting biotechnology and medical device companies to locate in the Netherlands. Mr. Van de Stolpe started his career as Manager of Business Development at MOGEN International NV in Leiden. He received an MSc degree from Wageningen University.

Bart Filius, MBA has served as our Chief Financial Officer since December 2014. Prior to that, Mr. Filius worked over 13 years at Sanofi SA, where he was the Chief Financial Officer of Sanofi Europe during the last three years. Earlier at Sanofi, he was the Country Manager and Chief Financial Officer of Sanofi in the Netherlands. Before that, he was Vice President for Mergers & Acquisitions, during which time he led and completed the divestiture of various franchises. Prior to joining Sanofi, he was a strategy consultant at Arthur D. Little. Mr. Filius has an MBA degree from INSEAD and a bachelor’s degree in business from Nyenrode Business University.

Piet Wigerinck, Ph.D. joined our company in April 2008 from Tibotec-Virco Comm. VA (a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc.) where he was VP Drug Discovery, Early Development and CM&C, and a member of the management board. He started his professional career as a medicinal chemist at Janssen Research Foundation in 1992. He then joined Tibotec Group NV in 1998, where, under his leadership, TMC114 (Prezista^TM) and TMC435 (Olysio^TM) were selected and moved forward into clinical trials. Dr. Wigerinck also played a key role in Tibotec’s expansion into novel diseases such as Hepatitis C and advanced several compounds into Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials. He brings over 25 years of research and development experience from both large pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies to our company. Dr. Wigerinck holds a Ph.D. from the K.U. Leuven and is inventor on more than 25 patent applications.

Andre Hoekema, Ph.D. is responsible for M&A, licensing and intellectual property at Galapagos. He had the lead in rolling out our pharmaceutical alliance strategy since its start in 2006, and is the architect of our collaboration with AbbVie for CF. Dr. Hoekema joined our company in March 2005 from Invitrogen Corporation, where he was Managing Director of Corporate Development Europe, overseeing licensing and M&A for Invitrogen Europe. He brings 30 years of biotech experience from positions at Molecular Probes Europe B.V. (Managing Director of the European office), Crucell N.V. (Director of Business Development and Intellectual Property), Koninklijke DSM N.V., MOGEN International N.V. (Research and Project Management), and Genentech, Inc. (postdoctoral researcher). Dr. Hoekema studied Chemistry and holds a Ph.D. from Leiden University. During his Ph.D. work, he invented the binary vector system for the genetic modification of plants, which he published in Nature in 1983; this has since then become the global standard in the field of agricultural biotech. He is the author of more than 30 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and an inventor of over 20 series of patent applications, resulting in 15 patents issued in the United States. Dr. Hoekema currently also serves as a member of the supervisory board of Mimetas B.V. and has previously served as a member of the supervisory board of VitalNext B.V.

Walid Abi-Saab, MD started his job as CMO at Galapagos in March 2017. Dr. Abi-Saab drives Galapagos' overall medical strategy and is responsible for late stage clinical development and operations, medical and regulatory affairs, and safety. Before, Dr. Abi-Saab worked at Shire Pharmaceuticals where he held various clinical development leadership roles, most recently as Group Vice President, Global Clinical Development - Therapeutic Area Head, Gastro-intestinal, Endocrinology and Metabolism. Prior to that, he led clinical development activities at Novartis, Abbott Laboratories and Pfizer, addressing a wide range of therapeutic areas and leading teams throughout the clinical development process. Under his leadership, more than 30 molecules have advanced through clinical development leading to several approvals in the US, EU and Canada. Prior to his pharma roles, Dr. Abi-Saab was Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosurgery at Yale University Medical School, where he headed their Schizophrenia Research at the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit and the Neurosurgery Epilepsy Microdialysis Research Program. Dr. Abi-Saab holds an MD degree from Université Saint Joseph in Beirut, Lebanon.