Luc Van Hijfte PhD

Luc Van Hijfte is a Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery at Symeres. Dr. Van Hijfte holds a Ph.D. degree in chemistry from Gent University (1984, Belgium) with Prof. M. Vandewalle, and finalized his academic training with a two-year post-doctoral stay at UCSB with Prof. RD. Little. He started his industrial career as a medicinal chemist at Merrell Dow in 1986 in Strasbourg, France, where he progressed to head of medicinal chemistry by the time the site had become part of Sanofi in 1998. In 2002 he moved to Janssen, J&J, first as Research Director of their R&D site in Val de Reuil, France, before taking on the role of Senior Director, Head of Medicinal Chemistry EU, at Janssen Research & Development, with responsibility for European-based medicinal chemistry, analytical technologies, and ADMET. During this tenure, Luc was privileged to contribute to several successful projects, with numerous programs entering into clinical development in the areas of neurosciences, oncology, and infectious diseases. In 2012 Dr. Van Hijfte became CSO of NovAliX, Illkirch, France, before moving in 2017 to his actual position of Sr VP Medicinal Chemistry at Symeres, where he oversees a team of approx. 80 chemists executing medicinal chemistry activities for clients worldwide.