Galapagos names J&J's Paul Stoffels as CEO

Replacing its retiring co-founder and chief executive Onno van de Stolpe, Belgium-based biotech Galapagos (Euronext: GLPG) today announced that industry veteran Paul Stoffels will join the company as CEO effective April 1.

Previously, Dr Stoffels was vice chairman of the executive committee and chief scientific officer of US healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), where he spearheaded the company’s research and product pipeline to set the company wide innovation agenda, discovering and developing transformational healthcare solutions, including the recent development of a single-shot COVID-19 vaccine within a record time frame. Prior to that, he was worldwide chairman Pharmaceuticals of J&J, which under his leadership significantly rejuvenated its product pipeline and adopted a transformational R&D operating model, resulting in the launch of 25 innovative medicines across the globe.

But high profile Dr Stoffel, even described as a parma 'legend' in reports of is appointment, faces serious challenges in this role at Galapagos, which has lost more than 50% of its market value in the past year, as a result of a disappointing alliance with Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD), and the discontinuation of an important research candidate ziritaxestat (GLPG1690). However, indicating investors approval, the shares were up nearly 17% at $54.74 euros by early afternoon trading today.