Supervisory Board

Mark De Boer, PhD - Chairman

Mark de Boer is a Partner at Index Ventures. He has for the last ten years worked for, managed and founded early stage biopharmaceutical companies in the field of innovative biopharmaceuticals. He graduated in Biochemistry and holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam. His academic research focused on immuno-modulation and he did pioneering work in the field of recombinant antibody technology. He teaches entrepreneurship in the Life Sciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands

Dirk Kersten, MSc – Director

Dirk Kersten is a partner at Gilde Healthcare Partners, which he joined in 2002. Prior to joining Gilde Healthcare Partners he worked in corporate finance and consulting and was involved in numerous M&A transactions, private placements and consulting projects. At Gilde Mr Kersten was involved in the investments in GlycArt Biotechnology and Chroma Therapeutics, while he led Gilde’s investments in Acacia Pharma, Ascendis Pharma and Symphogen. Mr Kersten represents Gilde on the boards of Ascendis and Symphogen. Mr Kersten holds a masters in science with a degree in applied physics from the University of Groningen.  

Herbert Heyneker, PhD - Director

Herb Heyneker was most recently Senior Vice President Research and Development at Crucell. Prior to that he was Chief Technical Officer of Eos Biotechnology, a genomics company he co-founded in 1996. Eos was acquired by Protein Design Labs in April 2003. He was involved in founding several life science companies including, GlycoGen and GenPharm International, and he served as Vice President, Research at Genencor International. Dr. Heyneker was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Genetics at Stanford University's Medical School. He started his career as a post-doc in Herb Boyer's lab at UCSF from 1975 till 1977, and was a Senior Scientist at Genentech for the next seven years where he published seminal papers on the cloning and microbial expression of somatostatin, human insulin and human growth hormone. He is an inventor on over 30 issued patents.

Carine van den Brink, MD, JD - Director

Carine van den Brink is a seasoned corporate lawyer, who specializes in providing legal counsel to high-tech companies, in particular in the healthcare and ICT sectors. Ms. van den Brink has extensive experience in negotiating patent, licensing and general business agreements, from drafting and negotiating, through terms sheets to final investment and shareholder agreements. Ms. van den Brink works with a great number of biotech companies, competence centers (e.g. universities and academic hospitals) and their spin-offs. Ms. van den Brink holds a law degree from Amsterdam University, and a medical degree from Groningen University. She started her career as a solicitor in Stibbe’s general corporate law and litigation practice before joining Pharming as in-house counsel, a role she subsequently took on at Getronics. In 2002 she founded Van den Brink Advocaten, a law firm that focuses on the biotechnology sector. Ms. van den Brink was Secretary of the Dutch Medical Disciplinary Tribunal for seven years, and lectures at Leiden University.

Chris Lamb, MBA - Director

Chris Lamb is the president and CEO of BioSolutions Consulting Services. He is an experienced senior executive with more than 25 years operating in a dynamic, highly competitive biopharmaceutical environment with responsibility for complex transactions, business development, R&D, operations, sales, and marketing. From 1999 until 2005 he was Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Plasma Services, and President, Pathogen Removal and Diagnostic Technologies Inc (PRDT) at the American Red Cross. He had overall responsibility for the ARC plasma business worldwide including management of the collection, distribution, manufacture, sales, marketing, research and development of plasma products. At ARC he created the strategy, secured executive team consensus and equity partners, and successfully led the $2.4 B divesture of ARC’s plasma business. From 1985 to 1999 Mr. Lamb held various leadership positions at the ARC. Mr. Lamb holds an MBA from George Washington University, Washington, DC; a MA and BA from Virginia Tech.

Colin Dalton, PhD - Observer

Colin Dalton is Director of Intellectual Property and Corporate Affairs and a member of the Executive Management team at Vectura Group plc, a product development company focused on inhaled therapies principally for the treatment of respiratory diseases. Previously he was at Innovata plc, Quadrant, a formulation company acquired by Innovata, and GSK Biologicals where he was Director of Business Development. He was a senior consultant in the biotechnology practice at PA Consulting, and started his career as a fermentation scientist at BP Co Ltd. Mr. Dalton trained as an applied biologist at Brunel University and obtained a PhD in 1977 at Leicester University.