Leadership

 Jan Smeitink Chief Executive Officer & Founder

With more than 25 years experience in patient care, diagnostics and research of patients suffering from mitochondrial disease, Jan is the founder of Khondrion. He also holds a position as Professor in Mitochondrial Medicine at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre (RUN-MC) in The Netherland and has been appointed foreign adjunct professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. In addition, he coordinates the Nijmegen Centre for Mitochondrial Disorders, the Centre for Systems Biology and Bioenergetics and is director of the Institute for Genetic and Metabolic Disease, the Rare Disease Research Institute, at the RUN-MC. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers. E-mail: info@khondrion.com

 

 

 

 

 

 Pedro Hermkens Vice-President Medicinal Chemistry

Prof. Pedro Hermkens, former Director Medicinal Chemistry of MSD in Oss is responsible for Khondrion's activities in mitochondrial drug development by leading the medicinal chemistry research and development team. Pedro has more than two decades experience in several therapeutic areas from early till late stages of the Drug Discovery Process (from target identification &validation, assay development, screening & hit identification till hit and lead optimization). He has a scientific background in organic chemistry, pharmacology and biochemistry. Pedro has ample experience in combinatorial chemistry, automation of chemistry and library design. At Khondrion he is also responsible for setting up an external network of CROs to do virtual research with in house projects. E-mail hermkens@khondrion.com

 

 

 

 

Werner J.H. Koopman Director Research and Development

As Khondrion’s R&D Director, Werner is also on the staff of the Department of Biochemistry at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, in The Netherlands. Here, his research focuses on gaining a quantitative and mechanistic understanding of mitochondrial energy metabolism in health and disease at the (sub)cellular and system level. To this end, he combines conventional biochemical techniques, quantitative live cell microscopy/spectroscopy and mathematical modeling. He has published more than 70 papers relating to this topic. E-mail: koopman@khondrion.com

 

 

 

 Peter Willems Director Operations

Peter is Khondrion’s Operational Director and also holds a position as associated professor at the Department of Biochemistry at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, the Netherlands. His main research interest is in understanding how mitochondrial dysfunction leads to cell pathology with the final aim to uncover targets for drugs that can improve the cell pathological condition. The focus is on live cell analysis of the cell biological consequences of mitochondrial dysfunction using luminescence and fluorescence techniques. Dynamic models are constructed to simulate the effect of interventions thus allowing a more rational approach to drug discovery. He has published close to 200 peer reviewed scientific papers. E-mail: willems@khondrion.com

Sjeng Horbach Vice-President Toxicology

Sjeng is a toxicologist with more than 30 years of experience in CRO, university and pharmaceutical companies, most recently with MSD in The Netherlands, where he was heading the Mechanistic and Investigational Toxicology group. In this function, he was e.g. responsible for the transition of novel projects from discovery into preclinical development. He has been involved in project teams where he set up preclinical toxicological studies to support the entry into clinical phase I. Sjeng  has a MSc degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Leiden and a PhD from the University of Maastricht. He is (co-) author of over 75 papers and reviews, predominantly in the field of drug metabolism, in vitro toxicology and genetic toxicology.

 

 

 Dennis Lammers Financial Manager

Dennis is Khondrion’s Financial Manager. Dennis also holds a position as Teamcoordinator Projectcontrol at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, the Netherlands. He has extensive international experience in financial-, project- and business control as well as financial management of Grants and cost price modeling. E-mail: lammers@khondrion.com

 

 

 

 Carine van den Brink Legal Counsel

As Partner with Axon Lawyers, Carine is responsible for securing Khondrion's legal position in formalising and negotiating business partnerships. Carine is a lawyer with a medical background, specialising in intellectual property law and business law, and she provides legal support for high-tech and life-science companies. She also has extensive expertise in structuring R&D contracts, in technology transfer and in licensing contracts. She also supports her clients in structuring and negotiating term sheets. Carine has thorough knowledge of the market and the underlying technologies, and has many years of experience in the legal aspects of biotech companies.