Expansion of Supervisory Board Supports Global Growth Strategy
Amsterdam, Netherlands and Hoboken, New Jersey: January 8, 2020: Castor, a health-tech company that aims to leverage machine readable data to increase clinical trial efficiency, announced the appointment of Ben Cons, PhD as Chairman of its Supervisory Board. Dr. Cons joins an existing Board of seasoned executives and specialist investors.
Dr. Cons has more than 30 years’ experience in pharmaceutical R&D and commercialization in the biotech, pharmaceutical and financing sectors. A prominent leader in global healthcare and technology, Dr. Cons has 20 years of experience with the NYSE-listed pharmaceutical services company IQVIA and its associated investment fund NovaQuest. Currently, Dr. Cons is a Special Partner at the private equity fund Vitruvian, and a NED at Talking Medicines Ltd, Fluidic Analytics Ltd, and Immune Regulation Ltd. He is also an investment member of private capital group, 24Haymarket and an investment panel member at Future Care Capital, a charity focusing on future health and social care policy.
He joins Supervisory Board members Corné Jansen, Partner at INKEF Capital, Mark Slaughter, founder of Cohealo and Commercial Head of Pharma Solutions at Philips, and Thijs Cohen Tervaert, Director at INKEF Capital – all working in partnership with Castor’s management team to continue its global growth, with the aim of making the world’s research data reusable, enabling AI-driven clinical trials, and ultimately creating a future in which they maximize the impact of data through reuse.
Castor’s Electronic Data Capture (EDC) platform enables every researcher worldwide to easily capture and integrate medical research data from any source in real-time, including clinicians, patients, devices and wearables. Researchers on the platform generate vast amounts of data from traditional and decentralized trials, and Castor recently reached milestones of 110,000,000 data points and 1,300,000 enrolled patients.
Dr. Cons, newly appointed Chairman of the Supervisory Board, commented: “Castor’s unique technology and ambition have the potential to transform how clinical research data is used to inform medical decision making. My colleagues on the Board and I look forward to working with Derk and his team towards realizing the full potential of Castor’s cutting-edge platform.”
Castor’s CEO Derk Arts, MD, PhD, added: “We are very pleased to have the guidance of individuals of such high-calibre and vision as part of our Supervisory Board. With the Board’s support, we continue to work towards our mission of making the world’s research data reusable. As one of the first companies to leverage machine-readable data for clinical research, we will be in the best position to enable AI-driven clinical trials and provide invaluable insights to commercial and academic research.”
See below for full biographies.
About Castor
Based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and New Jersey, US, Castor is an international health-tech company founded in 2012 by CEO Derk Arts, MD, PhD to leverage machine readable data to increase clinical trial efficiency. Castor’s Electronic Data Capture (EDC) platform enables every researcher worldwide to easily capture and integrate medical research data from any source in real-time, including clinicians, patients, devices, wearables, and EHR systems.
Castor is currently collaborating with 30,000 researchers, academic institutions and commercial companies across 90 countries to help them accelerate their studies. The platform has supported more than 4,000 studies that cover a broad range of disease areas including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, rare diseases, and cancer. Researchers on the platform generate vast amounts of data from traditional and decentralized trials, and Castor recently reached milestones of 110,000,000 data points and 1,300,000 enrolled patients. As one of the first companies to leverage machine readable data for clinical research, Castor’s platform will enable AI-driven clinical trials and provide invaluable insights to commercial research.
In 2018 Castor raised $6.25m in funding from healthcare investor INKEF Capital in the Netherlands.
Castor Supervisory Board
Ben Cons, PhD
Ben Cons is a Pharmaceutical and Healthcare leader with a proven track record and more than 30 years experience in pharmaceutical R&D & commercialisation in the Biotech, Pharmaceutical and Financing sectors. He previously spent 20 years with the NYSE listed pharmaceutical services company IQVIA and the associated NovaQuest investment fund. Currently, Ben is a Special Partner at the private equity fund Vitruvian and a NED at Talking Medicines Ltd, Fluidic Analytics Ltd, and Immune Regulation Ltd. He is also an Investment Panel Member Future Care Capital a charity focusing on future health and social care policy and a Mentor at Southampton University Future Worlds.
Mark Slaughter
Mark Slaughter is currently the Commercial Head of Pharma Solutions for Philips. He has also held the roles of Head of Pharma and MedTech- Healthcare Transformation Services, and Head of Healthsuite Labs- The America’s at Philips. Mark founded and lead the venture backed health tech company Cohealo, and before that spent several years advancing robotics procedure design with surgeon innovators in Gynecology, Head and Neck, and Neuro. Mark received his MBA from the University of Miami and holds a BSc in Management in Business from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Corné Jansen
Corné Jansen has seven years of investment experience in technology. Prior to joining INKEF in May 2015, Corné was a VP at HPE Growth Capital, a late stage growth fund where he looked at both B2B as well as B2C business models in the areas of fintech, applied materials and enterprise software. Before joining HPE, Corné worked in the London based Technology Coverage teams of Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston, both in London where he executed several M&A transactions and IPOs. Corné also serves on the board of GeoPhy, EclecticIQ, and Cashforce. He holds a BSc in Finance from Reims Management School and a MSc. degree in Financial Management from the Nyenrode, Netherlands.
Thijs Cohen Tervaert, MD
Thijs Cohen Tervaert is a Director at INKEF. Thijs currently also serves on the board of ViCentra, Aidence, Vicentra, Audion Therapeutics, and Rainier Therapeutics. Prior to INKEF, Thijs was a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group with a focus on health care and technology. He worked on projects for pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and insurers. During a one year secondment, Thijs helped to establish the Amsterdam Health and Technology Institute in 2014. Thijs is a medical doctor and graduated at Leiden University. He has also co-authored several scientific papers.