Founders team

Movetis was founded in 2007 by four experienced managers who represent more than a century of pharmaceutical industry experience. Their management experience ranges from patent applications, drug discovery & clinical development to commercial excellence and business development. The four team members all previously worked at Janssen Pharmaceutica where they built up a solid and unique understanding of the gastrointestinal (GI) compounds in the MOVETIS portfolio.

The four founders of Movetis (from left to right): Remi van den broeck (CDO), Staf van Reet (Chairman), Dirk Reyn (CEO) and Jan Schuurkes (CSO).

Staf Van Reet, our Chairman, has been President of the Janssen Research organization for many years. He has a track record of over 30 years with JNJ in various senior management positions and was Vice President Europe for JJDC, the JNJ venturing arm. Staf is active in the biotech world as Chairman of FlandersBio, the Flemish cluster of biotech companies, and as a board member of a number of scientific institutions and biotech companies.

Remi Van den Broeck, our Chief Development Officer (CDO), founded and was CEO and Chairman of Medisearch Int., a CRO with offices in Belgium, Spain and the USA.
Remi was first employed by Janssen Pharmaceutica as an International Clinical Development Project Leader and after the sale of his company Medisearch Int. in 2003, he became Managing Director of SGS Life Science.

Jan Schuurkes, our Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), was until recently Vice-President of Research and Distinguished Research Fellow at the Janssen Research Foundation. Jan is recognized worldwide as an expert in GI pharmacology and has developed many drugs in this area that successfully made the move to market (including MOTILIUM and PREPULSID). Our MOVETIS portfolio consists largely of products discovered in his Department of Gastrointestinal Pharmacology in Beerse.

Dirk Reyn, our CEO, was the head of the GI Strategic Marketing group for many years and then Vice President New Business Development for Janssen-Cilag in Europe. Dirk has more than 25 years of experience: he first joined JNJ in 1992 and became the driving force behind the global marketing and commercial strategy for such products as PREPULSID and PARIET and other compounds from the GI portfolio.

We have recently added the following experts to our team:

Ann Meulemans holds a Master in Biology and a PhD in Science, both from the University of Anwerp. Ann has 17 years of pharma industry experience. Starting at J&J in 1990, she held different positions with increasing responsibilities in Drug Discovery as well as Preclinical and Clinical Drug Development. She was Disease Area Head GI diseases and in her final position she was responsible for Clinical Development Internal Medicine in the European J&J R&D organisation. Ann has been a member of the J&J European R&D Board. Currently, she is Vice President Early Development and member of the Movetis Development Board.

Lieve Vandeplassche joined Movetis as Vice President of Clinical Development. Lieve has over 25 years of experience in Research and Development of which 15 years in Clinical Development in the GI area. Prior to joining Movetis, Lieve was Vice President of Research and Early Development at Barrier Therapeutics and International Clinical leader for ZELMAC at Novartis and for RESOLOR at Janssen Pharmaceutica.

René Kerstens has almost 20 years experience as biostatistician within the pharmaceutical industry. He started as statistician with Solvay Pharmaceuticals in the Netherlands and joined Johnson & Johnson Belgium in 1995. The first 10 years with Janssen Pharmaceutica (PRD) in Beerse and the last 2 years with Tibotec in Mechelen. In this function, he has been involved in several teams and several regulatory submissions: the first years in the gastro-intestinal area and later in oncology (AML), dermatology and hematology. At Tibotec he was responsible for all compounds in early development and for tuberculoses and HCV. René obtained his Masters degree in Applied Mathematics at the University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, followed by a Masters degree in Biostatistics at the Limburgs Universitair Centrum in Diepenbeek, Belgium.

Joris de Maeyer holds a Masters degree in Bio-Engineering in Cell and Gene Biotechnology from the University of Leuven and a PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of Ghent. In 2001 he joined J&J as a Sr. Research Associate Quality Assurance Research & Development and moved to the department of Gastrointestinal Pharmacology in 2002 where he conducted his PhD research on serotonin receptors in the gastrointestinal tract and cardiovascular system. His work on a number of portfolio products was essential in building the platform for the Movetis discovery organization. At Movetis, as a research associate non-clinical development he will be responsible for the preclinical portfolio of motility products.

Maarten van Geffen holds a Masters degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Utrecht. Maarten has 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical development. In 1999 he joined the Janssen Research Foundation in Beerse as the Senior Manager Global CM&C Regulatory Affairs. Before joining Movetis, Maarten has also worked as Associate Director CM&C Regulatory Affairs at Centocor and as Director CM&C at Barrier Therapeutics in Geel.