Hans De Haard

Hans de Haard is a co-founder of argenx and served as Chief Scientific Officer until 2022 before he transitioned to be an Ambassador for the Immunology Innovation Program and a Board Advisor. Hans is a serial pioneer of antibody platforms and has been active in the antibody engineering field since 1989, initially at AKZO Nobel and subsequently at the University of Maastricht where he created a large non-immune human Fab library that subsequently became a core asset of Dyax, yielding multiple therapeutic antibodies including ImClone products IMC-A12, IMC-1F8 and the recently approved anti-VEGFR2 antibody ramucirumab (formerly called IMC-1121B).

From 1998 to 2002 he was responsible for the discovery of llama VHH-based products at Unilever. Just prior to argenx, Hans was on the discovery team at Ablynx where he was responsible for setting up the Nanobody® discovery engine and played a central role in the development of the Nanoclone® methodology based on B cell selection.

Throughout his career, Hans has discovered numerous therapeutic antibody leads, seven of which are now progressing in the clinic. He holds a Master of Science in Biochemistry and a PhD in Molecular Immunology from the University of Maastricht. He is a Professor of Immunology at the University of Franche Comté.