Paul Stoffels

International Board of Governors

Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Galapagos NV; Former Chief Scientific Officer, Johnson & Johnson

Paul Stoffels is Chief Scientific Officer at Johnson & Johnson. As such, he is focused on leading global teams to discover and develop new and innovative treatments for unmet medical needs in the areas of CNS, pain, infectious disease, metabolism, cardiovascular disease, and primary care across Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, LLC, ALZA Corporation, and TransForm Pharmaceuticals Inc. Previously, he was company group chairman, Virology, where he led both R&D and commercialization activities for one of the newest business segments of Johnson & Johnson.

He has more than 15 years global experience in both pharmaceutical and HIV/AIDS R&D. He joined the Janssen Research Foundation (JRF) and worked for four years as physician/researcher in Kinshasa, Congo and Kigali, Rwanda. His research was focused on AIDS and infectious diseases. In 1991, he became the head of development for infectious diseases at JRF in Beerse, Belgium, where he was instrumental in the development of antifungal drugs. In 1997, he left Janssen to become CEO of Tibotec-Virco, where he grew the company from a technology-based research company into an integrated pharmaceutical R&D organization focused on the discovery and development of new drugs and diagnostics for HIV/AIDS and infectious diseases.

Both during and after his MD training, Dr. Stoffels had a special interest in health care problems in the developing world, especially Africa. He was instrumental in building the relationship between UNAIDS/WHO and the pharmaceutical industry with regard to the provision of HIV drugs in Africa. He has a continued interest to explore solutions for health care problems in the developing world. He also represents Johnson & Johnson for in-depth discussions on Health related matters at the yearly World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He studied Medicine at the University of Diepenbeek and the University of Antwerp in Belgium and Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium.