Hybridize Therapeutics

Onno van de Stolpe founded Galapagos in 1999 and has served as CEO from 1999 to the present. From 1998 to 1999, he was the Managing Director of Genomics at IntroGene BV (later Crucell NV, which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc. in 2011).

From 2002-2021, Dr. John Maraganore has been the CEO and Director of Alnylam ($20B+). Before that he worked for Millennium Pharma as Senior Vice President and Strategic Product Development. Before Millennium he served as Director of Molecular Biology and Director of Market and Business Development at Biogen.

Dr. James Shannon has extensive expertise in clinical drug development. From 2012 until his retirement in 2015, James was Chief Medical Officer at GlaxoSmithKline. Prior to that he was Global Head of Pharma Development at Novartis and Senior Vice-President Clinical Development at Sterling Winthrop Pharmaceuticals.

Michael Hodges has deep RNA therapeutics technical expertise. He is supporting a number of Biotechnology companies in the role of drug development consultant.  Previously, he was the CMO of Amplyx Pharma, developing treatments for life-threatening viral and fungal infections in immuno-compromised patients.

Dr. Dinko Valerio is founder and former CEO of Crucell, and one of the founders of its spinout, Galapagos Genomics. Adding to his corporate experience, Dr. Dinko Valerio was also a professor of gene therapy at the University of Leiden.

Daniel is founder and CEO of ProQR. After one of his children was diagnosed with a rare disease, he started ProQR to develop RNA therapies for rare diseases. Under Daniel’s leadership ProQR developed a diversified pipeline of potential treatments for rare diseases and raised over $300M in funding, including an IPO on Nasdaq.

Dr. Andre Hoekema joined Galapagos as CBO in 2005. Before that he worked for Invitrogen Corporation, where he was Managing Director of Corporate Development Europe. He brings 20 years of biotech experience from many different firms (a.o. Crucell, DSM Life Sciences, Syngenta and Genentech).

Dr. Annemieke Aartsma-Rus is a Professor of Translational Genetics at the Department of Human Genetics at the LUMC. She played an important role in the development of an antisense-mediated exon skipping therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Dr. Mariet Feltkamp is a medical virologist and Associate Professor at the LUMC Department of Medical Microbiology. In 2010, she discovered (and named) a new human polyomavirus in skin lesions of a trichodysplasia spinulosa patient (TSV or TSPyV).

Dr. Gerard Platenburg is co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at ProQR. Before that, he co-founded Prosensa growing it to become a well-known clinical stage RNA modulation company. He held various positions including CEO and CDO.

Prof. Dr. Volker Nickeleit started his own research group specializing in the diagnostic and scientific evaluation of kidney diseases. He is the leading author of the  BANFF classification for BK-virus associated nephropathy and is regarded as the key opinion leader in this field.

Dr. Troels Koch has 20+ years experience in the life science and biopharmaceutical industry. Founder of several biotech companies of which Exiqon and Santaris Pharma are the most commonly known. Santaris Pharma A/S was successfully exited in August 2014 – acquired by Roche – and Exiqon A/S was acquired in 2016 by Qiagen.

Prof. Dr. Jaap Jan Boelens is a pediatric hematologic oncologist and Chief of the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering. He is specialized in bone marrow and cord blood transplantation to treat blood diseases in children and young adults.

Dr. Benjamin Laskin is an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests are in infections and kidney disease in immunosuppressed children.

Dr. Anton Jan van Zonneveld is the scientific co-founder of our therapy against BK virus and Professor of Experimental Vascular Medicine at the LUMC. Before that, he was the Managing Director Cardiovascular Research at Crucell. He also serves as a member of the Board of the Dutch Kidney Foundation.

Jurriën Prins is the the scientific co-founder of our therapy against BK virus and working as post-doc researcher at the department of Nephrology of the LUMC. He studied the role of RNA-binding proteins and various RNA-based therapeutic modalities. He combines bio-informatic approaches with experimental lab work to further the development of antisense therapies.

Dr. Falk Wachowius’ research interests lie primarily in the area of nucleic acid biochemistry. He is currently mainly dedicated to the development of oligonucleotides that target viral (sub)genomic RNA to inhibit virus replication. Before this he held research positions at the MRC-LMB in Cambridge and the University of Groningen.

Dr. Eric Verschuren studied the role of urinary flow in kidney (patho)physiology, such as renal electrolyte handling and Polycystic Kidney Disease, during his PhD research at the Radboudumc in Nijmegen. Before joining Hybridize, he worked as a scientist in target discovery and assay development for kidney diseases at Galapagos.

Janneke Kouwenberg is a research technician in the Hybridize Therapeutics laboratory team. Besides working with cell based assays and molecular techniques, she has an extensive interest in fluorescence (confocal) microscopy. 

Researcher at Hybridize Therapeutics with the ambition to improve the lives of kidney patients. She has a Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences background and worked before at the Target Discovery and Validation department of Galapagos.