It was when he was studying at the agricultural university in Wageningen, The Netherlands, when “I got fascinated by molecular biology, and the biotech industry in general,” said Onno van de Stolpe, Founder and CEO of Galapagos. The Belgian-Dutch biotech started out mainly as a fee-for-service company, but is now focused on its own R&D programs and has grown over the past 18 years to almost 600 employees and secured a place as one of the largest biotechs in Europe by market cap.
Van de Stolpe got his start in biotech with an internship at Biogen, followed by a business position in an agricultural biotech in the Netherlands before moving to the US to work for the Dutch government on convincing American companies to set up operations in The Netherlands.
