Dirk is a graduate from the Medical School of the Catholic University of Leuven (1988) and also holds a degree in Pharmaceutical Medicine and an MBA from the Vlerick School for Management in Belgium.
During his pharmaceutical career he also attended several executive leadership programs at Insead and Harvard Business schools.

After a few years in clinical practice, he joined the industry in 1993 as a clinical research physician. He joined Pfizer in 1997 as medical advisor and received increasing responsibilities in medical affairs, regulatory and clinical development. He served as Country Medical Director for Pfizer Belgium and also headed the Pfizer Clinical Research Unit at the Erasme University of Brussels where he led a team of > 100 research professionals responsible for multiple First in Humans and First in Patients pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics studies.

Before assuming his current responsibilities as Vice President Medical Affairs International Developed Markets for Rare Disease, he led the medical affairs teams in the Western European Markets for Specialty Care.

Next to his role as IDM medical affairs lead, he’s a regular speaker at international events speaking on the evolving role of medical affairs and on policy issues that are of importance to patients with rare diseases.
He’s also an invited lecturer at the University of Leuven in the Pharmaceutical Medicine Curriculum for students in Biomedical science

In his free time he enjoys running and riding his race bike yet most of all, he enjoys playing with his 4 grandchildren aged between 2 years and 3 months.