Frederik Rombouts

Frederik did his PhD at K.U. Leuven (Belgium) in the group of Prof. G. Hoornaert on heterocyclic and peptidomimetic chemistry, and a post-doc in the group of Prof. W. Lubell at the Université de Montréal (Canada) on solid-phase xantine chemistry. He joined the Janssen Discovery Chemistry department in Beerse in 2003 as synthetic chemist and focused his early career on combinatorial macrocycle chemistry. In 2008, he moved to the Neuroscience therapeutic area where he first became team leader responsible for chemistry innovation and hit generation in support of the Neuroscience portfolio.

In 2015 he became a Neuroscience project leader and coordinated the candidate delivery of a tau pathology PET imaging tracer and a beta-secretase 1 selective inhibitor for treating Alzheimer's Disease in collaboration with Shionogi Inc. Frederik moved to support the oncology field in 2018 where he led the MCL1 inhibitor program within the Janssen hematological malignancy franchise, a highly challenging PPI program. More recently he took on two early programs in the oncology field.

Besides his portfolio contributions and deep knowledge in medicinal chemistry, he's been recognized for his outstanding team leadership and mentorship. He also initiated and delivered on various initiatives like the build-up of a high-quality proprietary fragment collection, academic collaborations including with Prof. Molander at U. Penn, and more recently a technology collaboration with SRI international on chemistry automation.

He is the author of 51 peer-reviewed synthesis and medicinal chemistry publications and co-inventor on 29 patent applications.