Robbert Jan Kok studied Pharmacy at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He graduated in 1993 as a pharmacist and obtained his PhD in 1998. The topic of  his thesis was renal drug targeting.

1998-2002 he worked as a postdoctoral scientist at the University of Groningen on the targeted delivery of anti-inflammatory and anti-angiogenic drugs to endothelial cells. In 2002, he became Principal Investigator at an EU-funded project dedicated to the development of novel linker technology for drug targeting conjugates. The developed linker systems have been applied for targeted delivery of kinase inhibitors to the kidney, liver and tumor vasculature.

In 2006, Robbert Jan Kok took up his present position at the department of Pharmaceutics at Utrecht University. He is involved in both teaching (pharmaceutics, drug development and pharmacokinetics) and research. Focus areas in his present research are the development of nanomedicines for the delivery of kinase inhibitors (using various carriers, e.g. proteins, nanoparticles and microspheres) to different targets (kidney and tumor). His expertise ranges from conjugation chemistry to pharmacokinetics and preclinical pharmacology. In addition, he is investigating the amorphous soilid dispersions and 2D and 3D-printing of medicine.