Rudi Pauwels's Biography

Rudi Pauwels, Founder Director/Chief Executive Officer, Biocartis

Rudi Pauwels, PhD (M) , is the Chief Executive Officer of Biocartis and founded the company in 2007.

As a pharmaceutical scientist (1960, Belgium) , he belonged to the first group of HIV/AIDS researchers who, shortly after the discovery of HIV in 1983-1984, started the efforts to find new treatments for HIV (AIDS).
For nearly 3 decades he mainly focused on the search and development of anti-HIV drugs, a number of which have been approved and introduced in the clinic while generating several billion USD revenue and the development of diagnostic technologies and products that address the needs in this new era of high precision, more personalised medicine.

His research as well as his entrepreneurial career is driven by medical needs and the passion to advance medicine while holding a strong belief in the value of a multidisciplinary scientific, technological and clinical approach to solve the key pharmaceutical and diagnostic challenges. In 2004 he expanded his areas of interest into micro- and nanotechnology and went on a 3-year sabbatical at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology-EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland), one of the leading research centers in this emerging field.
Mr Pauwels is (co)-author of more than 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals and is the recipient of several awards for his scientific and entrepreneurial accomplishments.

In 2012, he and Biocartis received the Global Technology Pioneer Award from the World Economic Forum (Davos, Switzerland). He received an honorary Doctorate Degree from the University of Ghent in 2013.
Mr. Pauwels holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.