Our team

Kees Groen

PhD

Kees Groen is co-founder and CEO of DGr Pharma and was founder and from 1997 till 2015 General Manager of Kinesis Pharma, a consultancy company in drug development. He was also co-founder and CEO of LAP&P Consultants, a modelling and simulation company. He holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences and a BSc in law.

Kees has extensive experience in pharmaceutical research and development, both with regulatory authorities and in industry. This included the generation and evaluation of in vitro data on absorption, metabolism and excretion, the mathematical modelling of these data and simulation/extrapolation of data from animals to man. As a consultant he has been involved on a management and operational level in the fields of preclinical and clinical development, regulatory affairs and licensing. He has a broad knowledge in the area of small molecules as well as biotechnological products.

He was a member of the drug development management team at Tibotec (now Janssen), an extremely successful company in the field of HIV.

Expertise is available in the areas of chemical-pharmaceutical, preclinical and clinical development as well as the regulatory process. This work is done for companies from Europe, USA, Japan and China.

Kees holds non-executive positions in a number of companies.

Jan Groen

Jan Groen is co-founder of DGr Pharma and was co-founder and from 1999 till 2023 CEO / owner of IC-Automatisering BV, an IT company, based in Dirksland, The Netherlands. Jan has extensive experience in cloud-based and on-premise IT-solutions. From 1985 till 1999 he was working at a local Dutch bank, involved in the development of electronic payment systems.

Veronique Baeten

BSc

Véronique joined DGr Pharma in December 2018 as Project Coordinator and Quality Manager. In her role as Quality Manager, she is responsible for the full implementation and maintenance of DGr Pharma’s GxP Quality Management System and she supports external clients as QA consultant.

Before joining DGr Pharma, she worked for nearly 17 years at Kinesis Pharma where she started as monitoring scientist bioanalysis. Besides her bioanalytical monitoring activities, she specialized in non-clinical PK and as Principal Investigator she was responsible for the execution and reporting of Non-Clinical pharmaco- and toxicokinetic GLP multi-site studies.

Over the years, Véronique got engaged in Quality Assurance and joined the Kinesis Pharma QA department where she was involved in planning and execution of the internal (facility & system) audit program and hosted several client audits and regulatory inspections.

During 2017-2018, she was project lead for the implementation of a new company-wide CAPA management system.
As part of her QA role, she also supported external companies with project management of postal PV license partner audits, with CAPA and TrackWise record management and acting as GLP QA officer.

In 1998, Véronique obtained her B.Sc. degree in Clinical Chemistry. The subject of her thesis, performed at the Department of Genetic and in vitro Toxicology of Janssen, was “Evaluation of alternative assays for the detection of DNA damage (Vitotox, Comet, Amax, Ames).” Hereafter she started her professional career at Janssen; initially in the in vitro Pharmacokinetics group. Thereafter, she joined the Bioanalytical Department where she was responsible for departmental planning and electronic sample management.

Erik Netten

BSc

Erik joined DGr Pharma in February 2019 as Associate Consultant. Erik graduated in 1996 as a Bachelor of Science in Analytical Chemistry at the Avans University of Applied Sciences. Erik started his career as a research analyst at Eurofins, Breda. After two years he continued his career as a research analyst at the DMPK department of Janssen, Belgium. From 2001 to 2019 Erik worked at Kinesis Pharma as a GLP Study Director in Non-Clinical pharmacokinetic and toxicokinetic studies. Erik has over 20 years of experience in GLP and a good understanding of the drug development processes in combination with knowledge of guidelines and regulatory requirements.

At DGr Pharma, Erik is involved in drug development consultancy with a focus on the development and monitoring of analytical assays. Erik is also responsible for pharmacokinetic and toxicokinetic evaluations in a GxP environment with final responsibility for the scientific, administrative and regulatory aspects of the studies.

Maaike Damen

BSc

Maaike joined DGr Pharma in February 2019 as Data Analyst Pharmacokinetics. In her role as Data Analyst, she is mainly responsible for the non-compartmental pharmacokinetic analyses with Phoenix WinNonlin and SAS. She is also responsible for maintaining the internal quality standards (e.g. updating SOPs, manuals and templates).

Before joining DGr Pharma, she started in 2007 her career in drug development as PK/PD data analyst at Kinesis Pharma where she has been exposed to a wide range pharmacokinetic studies from various therapeutic areas, ranging from straight-forward bioequivalence studies in healthy volunteers up to complex studies in patients.

In 2007, Maaike obtained her Bachelor of Health degree in Pharmaceutical Business Administration.

Nancy Vugts

BSc

Nancy joined DGr Pharma in September 2019 as Pharmacokinetic/Toxicokinetic Data Analyst, responsible for the non-compartmental pharmacokinetic analyses in Phoenix WinNonlin and SAS. She is also acting as independent auditor.

Nancy started her career in 2002 as an analyst at the Analytical & Physical Chemistry department and the Bioanalytical department of Charles River Laboratories (GLP). After 9 years she pursued her career as a Clinical PK Data Analyst at Kinesis Pharma where she was responsible for the analysis and review of clinical PK studies (GCP). In 2015, she joined the Kinesis Quality Assurance Department where she was involved in study, process, facility and system audits (GxP).

Nancy obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry in 2002 at the Avans University of Applied Sciences.

Corrie Breeman

Corrie joined DGr Pharma in 2018 as Head of Financial Administration and has extensive experience in the financial field. In her role as Head of Financial Administration, she is responsible for all financial activities within the company. In addition, Corrie is responsible for project budget control and HRM administration. Corrie also holds the position of (e)-Archivist and Document Manager.

Ron van ’t Hof

PhD

Ron joined DGr Pharma in November 2018 as Director Chemistry, Manufacturing and Control.

Ron’s background is in chemistry. He was graduated in 1989 at the University of Utrecht and obtained his PhD at the Center of Biomembranes and Lipid Enzymology, Promotor Dr. B. de Kruijff, University of Utrecht in 1994.

Ron has extensive experience in pharmaceutical research and development of biologicals (upstream and downstream process) and small molecules from laboratory scale up to commercial manufacturing including the preparation of all required CMC and regulatory documentation.

As project manager he was responsible for several development programs for biologicals and small molecules in collaboration with large players of the international pharmaceutical industry.

He was in charge of technology transfer processes, process and cleaning validation and I/O/PQ of utilities and process equipment.

As Head of Operation he was responsible for manufacturing facilities of biologicals.

Ron held several management positions in pharmaceutical development departments (up to approximately 60 persons).

Mark Boonman

BSc

Mark joined DGr Pharma in September 2020 as Data Analyst Pharmacokinetics. In his role as Data Analyst, he is mainly responsible for the non-compartmental pharmacokinetic analyses with Phoenix WinNonlin and SAS.

Mark’s background is in analytical chemistry. He obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in 2003 at the Avans University of Applied Sciences. Mark started his career in drug development as a Clinical Data Manager at Eurofins Global Central Laboratory in 2010. After five years he continued his career at Kinesis Pharma as PK/PD Data Analyst where he has been exposed to a wide range of pharmacokinetic studies in various therapeutic areas.

Mark has over 10 years of experience in GCP and a good understanding of the drug development process.

Hilde Bohets

PhD

Hilde joined DGr Pharma in June 2021 as Senior Consultant Non Clinical Development.

Hilde holds a Master in Sciences and a PhD in Medical Sciences from the university of Antwerp. She worked on vitro methods to replace in vivo nephrotoxicity testing.

She has more than 20 years’ experience in drug development. In 1995 she started her career at Jansen Pharmaceutica (Johnson&Johnson), where she had rising responsabilities from study director, study monitor, people leader and drug development leader (scientific director/Research Fellow). She has a demonstrated history of working in project management teams and has strong research professional skills in preclinical pharmacokinetics, toxicology and biomarkers. Therapeutic areas supported by Hilde are gastrointestinal diseases, infectious diseases, oncology and CNS. She was project leader (early and/or late development) for more than 15 drugs that made it to the first in human studies, 4 of them reached the market. Hilde was involved in several due diligences activities, both on in-licensing and out-licensing.

Hilde coached several employees (Belgium and Japan) and taught pharmacokinetics at several universities. She was co-promotor of a PhD thesis, was direct supervisor of the pharmacokinetics and in vitro metabolism group (9 employees from bachelor to PhD). From a scientific point of view she took the lead in the implementation of several new technics and a PhD thesis which was granted with external funding. Hilde is case by case consulted for FWO or journals as external expert.

In her role she is responsible for the design and follow up of the preclinical development plans from discovery till launch for safety pharmacology, genetic toxicology, general toxicology, preclinical pharmacokinetics and determination of the starting dose. She will take care of the design of development plans, CRO selection and follow up, writing of IBs and regulatory documents and interactions with authorities.

Marc Bolt

BSc

Marc joined DGr Pharma in March 2022 as Data Analyst Pharmacokinetics. In his role as Data Analyst, he is mainly responsible for the non-compartmental pharmacokinetic analysis with Phoenix WinNonlin and SAS.

Marc holds a BSc degree in bioanalytical chemistry (1994) and a MSc degree in bioprocess engineering (1997).

He has 25 years of experience in data processing in clinical drug development in several roles, such as data manager, statistical programmer, (senior) biostatistician/pharmacokineticist. He has experience with all common types of Phase 1/2a studies, such as single/multiple ascending dose, ADME, effect of food, renal/hepatic impairment, drug-drug interaction, proof-of-concept and bioequivalence and was responsible for PK (WinNonlin) calculations, (statistical) analysis of PK and safety data, statistical and PK analysis plans, sample size calculations, randomizations, (interim) PK reporting, statistical/PK section of study protocols, CDISC ADaM programming, etc.

Marleen Janus

PhD

Marleen joined DGr Pharma in August 2023 as Senior Consultant Chemical-Pharmaceutical and Non Clinical Development. In her role she guides chemical-pharmaceutical and nonclinical development by supporting CRO selection, overseeing program progression, writing of IBs and regulatory documents and interacting with authorities.

Marleen holds an MSc in Life, Science & Technology at the TU Delft and Leiden University (combined program) and obtained her PhD in oral microbiology in 2017 at the University of Amsterdam.

Before joining DGr Pharma, she worked at Charles River Laboratories as assay development scientist and quality officer. She worked on a large variety of drug indications to support in vitro efficacy testing. From 2021 to 2023 she worked for the startup HHV Biotech where she was responsible for quality management and management of the nonclinical drug development program.

Rita de Bont

Rita is responsible for the cleaning of the DGr Pharma facility.