DriPel started as cooperation between a cardiologist and a pharmacist.
How can we improve the life of patients by working together
Board
Vincent van Driel (MD, PhD)
Chief Medical Officer / cofounder
Cardiologist / Electrophysiologist experienced with patients with arrhythmias and heart failure. Experienced in innovation of procedures and cardiac medical devices.
Currently works at Haga Hospital The Hague.
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Hubert Pellikaan (MSc, MBA)
Chief Technology-Operating Officer / cofounder
Pharmacist Hubert Pellikaan, experienced in formulation development. Special focus on development of alternative delivery routes for medication, also has a keen eye on poorly soluble compounds.
Inventor of 20+ patents and publications
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Advisory Board
Ineke Jonker-Hoogerkamp (MSc, PhD)
Ineke Jonker graduated in pharmacy at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands followed by a PhD in pharmacokinetics at Leiden University. She has over 30 years of experience in regulatory affairs including substantial experience in the regulatory aspects of global drug development, market approval and regulatory compliance of human medicinal products. Ineke hold senior regulatory positions in Organon and Genzyme and worked as director of the Regulatory Affairs division at consultancy company Xendo with her group of 20 consultants.
Currently Ineke works as independent consultant in regulatory affairs and drug development at her own company Eagle Pharma Consult. She combines her work as a consultant with education a.o. at the MSc course of TOPRA and as Assistant Professor at Paul Janssen Futurelab (Leiden University).
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Advisory Board / Investor
BAH / Johan Bender (MSc, PharmD.)
BAH was founded in 2001 and has been actively investing in healthcare (medtech and biotech) and high-tech since 2022. The owner of BAH is Johan Bender, a pharmacist. The word 'analytical' in BAH finds its origin in BAH's participation with Fame Holding B.V. in the companies Farmalyse B.V. and Bactimm B.V. Both companies were sold together with EMCM B.V. from Nijmegen to a German conglomerate in 2007.
After the sale in 2007, BAH continued independently with developing cannabis-related medical products. This patent portfolio was expanded in collaboration with GW Pharmaceuticals (GWP) from Great Britain between 2014 and 2020 and ultimately sold to GWP in 2020. Even now, BAH is working together with a Spanish research institute to investigate an injectable cannabis preparation in newborn babies to prevent complications caused by oxygen deficiency at birth.
BAH's largest project, where Bender conceived the idea, is GATT Technologies B.V. (GATT). At GATT, a synthetic implantable, biodegradable patch was developed that can quickly stop surgical bleeding. GATT was acquired by Ethicon, part of the American Johnson & Johnson, in May 2022.
GATT's core values form the foundation for BAH regarding factors on which Bender evaluates other start-ups and scale-ups before deciding whether or not to invest. Some of these factors are logical – others are less known to the general public: it's logical that the relevant product truly fills a gap and represents an improvement over what is available (or not available). Furthermore, the medtech, biotech, and high-tech (deep tech) sectors are all subject to a sum of many details where every detail must be correct: one bad contract between the company in question and a university or supplier can endanger the financing of such an enterprise.
After the right product, the most important thing is the Team and experience: the mentioned sectors require a combination of insight into technology, science, and financial matters, including subsidy applications. Just like with GATT, BAH likes to work together with regional development companies such as Oost NL and ROM Regio Utrecht. Oost NL is the development company of Eastern Netherlands that strengthens the regional economy with targeted investments on behalf of the provinces of Gelderland and Overijssel.
Recently, BAH completed a €22 million Series B funding round for AMT Medical B.V. in such a collaboration with Invest-NL, Oost NL, and the European Innovation Council (EIC). Other companies BAH is currently involved with include Saillant Therapeutics B.V. (biotech), Cassini Technologies B.V. (medtech), Genewity Holding B.V. (biotech), Optics11 B.V. (deep tech), and Fizyr B.V. (high tech).
The biggest common denominator of these companies is that there doesn't necessarily have to be revenue or profit before the technology can be sold: often it concerns a strategically important development that is valuable to third parties at an early stage – just as was the case with GATT. In this context, Optics11 is a good example: at Optics, they monitor at fingerprint level based on light. Because the system is both robust and ultra-sensitive, it is used underwater as an early warning system to better protect critical infrastructure such as internet cables on the seabed.