简介: |
Dr Simmen currently heads the Janssen Infectious Diseases Discovery Research and Early Development group, based in Beerse, Belgium. In this leadership role he has overseen the drug discovery and progression of multiple compounds into clinical development, including TMC435, an antiviral currently in Phase III trials for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV). He has been in Johnson & Johnson since 1997: since 2002 in Belgium (with Tibotec) and previously in the Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development group in La Jolla, California, where he was a founder member of the Virology Group. He is also a Director of Janssen R&D, Ireland, and is the Johnson & Johnson representative on the European Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) Research Directors Group.
Dr Simmen holds an undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and obtained his PhD at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg, Germany under the direction of Dr Iain Mattaj (thesis: Transcription of U6 snRNA genes). He trained as a postdoc (EMBO and HFSP Fellowships) with Prof Rene Bernards at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam on viral transcription factors, before entering the pharmaceutical industry with Roche UK, where he worked on antiviral drug discovery against herpes viruses. |
