TOPX Summit 2024

Marieke Louwers is Director Strategic Alliances at argenx. She has a degree in chemistry and biotechnology and a PhD in molecular biology. After working in Agricultural Biotech for 10 years, she made the switch to human Drug Development. Always wanting to broaden her leadership skills and insights, she followed programmes in Management and then Corporate Finance at the Vlerick Business school. She strives to lead by example and loves inspiring and energizing people and teams by building relationships and respecting others.Marieke is trained as a chemist and biotechnologist in Ghent, before starting her PhD at the University of Amsterdam, working on epigenetics in maize. After 4.5 years she moved back to Belgium and started working in industry, as she wanted to apply her skills towards society. She worked at CropDesign (BASF Plant Sciences) for almost 10 years, improving yield in various crops. In the end, as Research manager she led the entire Discovery platform, collaborated with large companies such as Monsanto (now Bayer) and Bayer, and worked often at BASF corporate level on innovation. She switched to the VIB Plant Systems Biology Center with the aim to develop and join a newly spun-out start-up. She worked alongside the Scientific Director of the center to liaise with Industry partners and implemented the academic collaboration with the North-Carolina State University. Next, she made a 180° switch from plant biotech to drug development (now 3,5 years ago). She became a program and alliance leader at argenx, working on the cusatuzumab program in co-development with Janssen. When that collaboration ended, She worked with Business Development group/team to repartner the program including pitching to potential partners, term sheet negotiation and contracting. Since beginning of 2021, she took up the role of building out alliance capabilities at argenx, and is currently overseeing a diverse set of strategic partnerships from early discovery collaboration programs till late stage out-licensed assets, as well as argenx’ spin-off companies. She is also a driving force behind projects concerning employee engagement and company culture.

argenx