 He was succeeded as Chairman of FlandersBio by Johan Cardoen.He obtained a degree of engineering in Applied Biological Sciences and a Ph.D. in Agricultural Sciences from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven, Belgium) and a Law degree from the University of Antwerp (Antwerp, Belgium).In 1972, he started his career at Janssen Pharmaceutica, as a scientist in the "Department of Theoretical Medicinal Chemistry".