Determination of remuneration of directors and executive committee members of Galapagos NV

The remuneration for members of the board of directors and of the executive committee (including the CEO) is determined by the board of directors on the basis of proposals from the nomination and remuneration committee. It is subject to the approval of the shareholders’ meeting where required, and takes into account the feedback received from shareholders. It also takes into account relevant benchmarks with appropriate peer companies and, for the members of the executive committee, also the group’s performance rating system. For the benchmarking exercise, the nomination and remuneration committee works with reputable external advisors. The peer group that is taken into consideration consists of publicly listed peer companies in the U.S. and Europe in the biopharmaceutical industry with a comparable market capitalization. Further details on the identity of the external advisors for a given year are included in our remuneration report for that year.

The group’s performance rating system assesses the performance of individual employees and managers over the calendar year against a set of objectives determined at the start of the year, resulting in a rating between 1 (unacceptable performance) and 5 (outstanding performance). In addition, the achievement of pre-determined annual corporate objectives is also taken into account to determine remuneration increases and bonuses. This also applies to the members of the executive committee (including the CEO).

The nomination and remuneration committee is composed exclusively of non-executive board members and a majority of its members qualify as independent directors. This helps prevent the occurrence of conflicts of interest regarding the setting up, amendments and implementation of the remuneration policy in relation to the executive committee members of Galapagos NV. The CEO and the other members of the executive committee are not invited to take part in any discussions of the nomination and remuneration committee related to their own individual remuneration. As regards the remuneration of the non-executive board members, all decisions are adopted by the shareholders’ meeting.