Our Team
An experienced management team complemented by top-notch advisors & partners with strong network partners including the facilities and infrastructure of the department of rheumatology at Radboudumc. Backed by Dutch Arthritis Society (ReumaNederland).
Ypke van Oosterhout
PhD
Founder and Chief Executive OfficerYpke van Oosterhout is the Founder and CEO of Philikos and the pioneering scientist behind T-Guard®’s development.
Ypke discovered T-Guard while working in the Hematology Department of the Radboud University Medical Center (Nijmegen, the Netherlands), after earning his MSc in biology from the University of Nijmegen. Recognizing T-Guard’s clinical potential, Ypke focused his PhD study on its mode of action, safety and efficacy. He spun out T-Guard’s development from the Radboudumc to continue its development as a disease modifying treatment for acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD), scleroderma and potentially other indications caused by misdirected, over-reactive or malignant T cells.
Maarten Frijlink
MSc
Chief Technology OfficerMaarten Frijlink has over 25 years of business experience and has served in a broad range of managerial roles.
Prior to joining Philikos he held leading positions in quality affairs, business development, manufacturing, process development and project management in small biotechnology and large pharmaceutical firms. He shaped many biopharmaceutical product development initiatives from both a scientific and strategic business planning perspective. He made critical contributions to regulatory submissions for several innovative biopharmaceuticals and managed the corresponding pre-approval regulatory site inspections.
At Philikos, Maarten is responsible for CMC development, manufacturing, logistics and related regulatory and quality assurance.
Rogier Thurlings
MD, PhD
Chief Scientific OfficerRogier joined Philikos in 2023 after a number of years of close collaboration. He is a rheumatologist and translational researcher at the Radboudumc.
His research focusses on mechanisms of autoreactive T and B cell mediated immunopathologies. He performed detailed pre-clinical and translational studies into the potential clinical efficacy of T-Guard for the treatment of rheumatic autoimmune diseases and associated pathologies. The positive results of this work has been recognized by a number of scientific awards. He continues to identify modes of action and potential clinical indications for T-Guard.
André de Lege
CA
Chief Financial OfficerAndré de Lege is a chartered accountant and hands-on finance professional with thirty years of broad expertise, including taxes, grants and legal.
André began his career at accounting firm Deloitte. Prior to joining Philikos he served as CFO of international medical device company Fame Holding (EMCM and Bactimm/Farmalyse), GATT Technologies and software company Intrinsic ID. André is responsible for financial reporting, cash flow forecasts, treasury and tax matters.
Suzanne Vink-Hermeling
PhD
Qualified Person & Manager Quality AssuranceSuzanne Vink-Hermeling studied pharmacy at Utrecht University, where she also started her PhD at the Department of Pharmaceutics and the Department of Animal Laboratory Facilities. Her PhD focused on the unwanted immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins. Prior to joining Philikos, she worked as a project manager and scientist with OctoPlus, where she started in 2005, and helped several clients to develop stable formulations and produce clinical trial material under GMP conditions. In 2008 she became Qualified Person at OctoPlus. She was also responsible for the validation of Octoplus’ new production building and performed several roles in various quality functions. After Octoplus, Suzanne worked at different pharmaceutical companies like Hal Allergy, Halix, Prosensa and BioMarin. In 2014, Suzanne started her own consultancy company Svinx Consultancy BV, and in 2024 she co-founded the service company OctoRelease BV, which provides CMC, regulatory, and quality advice, and QP services.
Ineke Jonker-Hoogerkamp
PhD
Regulatory AffairsIneke 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).
Stijn Muller
BSc, BaSc
Project PlannerStijn is an IPMA-PMO certified project planner with over twenty years of expertise in value-adding project management within the pharmaceutical industries. He is used to translating complex processes into easy-to-understand overviews and visualizes the fastest development path possible.
Stijn began his career at Organon and started his own consultancy firm in 2015. In his role as Project Planner for Philikos, he transforms data from the different CROs to a critical-path planning and monitors it on progress. Data is analyzed in MS Project and MS Access to visualize the current challenges and to calculate different scenarios. The ultimate goal is to have T-Guard registered and available for patients as soon as possible.