Marnix Van Loock is Senior Scientific Director within the Global Public Health (GPH) R&D department of Janssen Pharmaceutica NV. In his current role as R&D Lead Emerging Pathogens, Marnix is responsible for the end-to-end strategy implementation of research and clinical development activities regarding coronaviruses, flaviviruses and emerging pathogens. Marnix is also a member of the Research and Development Committee, and the Drug Management Committee of GPH. As R&D Lead Emerging Pathogens, he oversees the clinical development of a first-in-class antiviral small molecule for the prevention and/or treatment of dengue, tackling a major unmet medical need. Since January 2020, Marnix also coordinates the antiviral discovery efforts in collaboration with Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. In addition, he is the project lead of the Innovative Medicines Initiative Coronavirus Accelerated R&D in Europe (IMI CARE) consortium.
Marnix holds a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium and M.Sc. degrees in Industrial Sciences (Biochemistry) and Applied Biological Sciences. He joined Tibotec BVBA (currently Janssen Pharmaceutica NV) in 2004 in the HIV entry discovery team. Subsequently, he joined the HIV integrase team, coordinating cell-based assay development. In 2009, he became the biology project lead for the cytomegalovirus latency project. In 2012, he became the biology project lead for the dengue project within Infectious Diseases & Vaccines, reflecting roles with increasing responsibility throughout his career.
Within the AViDD consortium, Marnix provides global leadership in pharmacologic research extensive industry expertise in high-throughput screening, medicinal chemistry and late-stage lead optimization to the aim of identifying novel broad-spectrum antivirals targeting contemporary and emerging flaviviruses and developing these towards the clinic.