Heiko von der Leyen

Heiko Echter von der Leyen (born 2 June 1955) is a German physician. He was born into the von der Leyen family in Hanover, which belonged to the German nobility. Von der Leyen is married to Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission since 2019.

Career
Von der Leyen studied Medicine at the University of Hamburg before pursuing further studies at Hanover Medical School. From 1992 to 1996, he was a faculty member of Stanford University. He received his Habilitation doctorate at Hanover Medical School in 1998, and was appointed Adjunct Professor of Internal Medicine and Experimental Cardiology at Hanover Medical School in 2002.

Von der Leyen became the Director of Hanover Clinical Trial Center GmbH in 2005; Hanover Clinical Trial Center (HCTC) is an academic clinical research organization on the campus of Hanover Medical School. Since December 2020, he is Medical Director of the company Orgenesis which specialises in cell and gene therapies. Von der Leyen resigned from his position on the supervisory board of Orgenesis in October 2022, after journalists reported that the Italian branch of Orgenesis had received EU research funds in the past.

Family
Born in 1955, he is the son of physician Ulrich von der Leyen (1918–1992) and his wife Cornelia Maria née Groth (1922–2014). Von der Leyen's family are Lutheran members of the Evangelical Church of Germany.

In 1986, Heiko married Ursula, by birth a member of the Albrecht family. They have seven children.