[4] In 2004, he was named Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Embassy of Colombia in London by President Álvaro Uribe Vélez.

[16] Galán is in support of voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, and as member of the Senate's First Commission voted in favour and worked to pass legislation that would regulate such practices.

[17][18] Both practices are allowed in Colombia after a 1997 Constitutional Court ruling, but no such laws to document and regulate the practice have been passed by Congress, preventing many from taking such measures, "no one can be legally forced to suffer or feel pain, to prolong a painful life, everyone has every right to be the master of their destiny and to have available the opportunity to decide, together with their family, about euthanasia procedures".

His father, Luis Carlos, was a former Education Minister, Ambassador, and Senator, who was shot to death by hitmen hired by the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar on 18 August 1989, when the former was running for President of Colombia.

Juan Manuel's maternal aunt, Maruja, then-wife of Luis Alberto Villamizar Cárdenas, was kidnapped a year later, also on orders of Escobar, as part of a larger scheme by Escobar and his allies to put pressure on the Government to stop an extradition deal with the United States, something Juan Manuel's father supported.