PureIMS is a clinical stage pharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing innovative inhaled therapies, based on its proprietary dry powder inhaler Cyclops™. The focus is on the treatment of systemic and respiratory diseases with significant unmet medical need. The company’s leadership team consists of seasoned life sciences executives who bring long-lasting and complementary experience in leading drug development, addressing applicable scientific issues and pursuing commercial and business development & licensing opportunities. They obtained their experience in leading positions with mid-size and top-5 global Pharma companies, and with successful service providers. PureIMS’ lead candidate, Levodopa Cyclops™, is in the final development stage as rescue therapy for OFF-episodes in Parkinson’s disease. One product, Colistin Cyclops™, is already marketed and reimbursed under a named patient program for the treatment of cystic fibrosis patients. Other clinical programs – including Epinephrine Cyclops™ for (food) allergy and impending anaphylaxis – are being explored in an early clinical stage. PureIMS also supports pharma/biotech partners, applying the Cyclops™-based inhalation route for their drug of choice.
our team
Jaap Wieling
PhD, Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Wieling brings 30 years of experience as an executive and entrepreneur in (bio)pharmaceutical research and development (TNO, DSM, PRA/ICON, Xendo, QPS and BiosanaPharma). He is a seasoned expert in building effective and efficient product and platform development businesses and serves on the board and advisory committee of various (bio)pharmaceutical companies and (biopharmaceutical) service industries. For many years he has been invited university lecturer on pharmaceutical product development. He holds a BSc degree in chemistry, an MSc degree in pharmacology and a PhD degree in Mathematics and Natural Sciences from Groningen University, The Netherlands.
Jeroen Tonnaer
PhD, CLP, Chief Business Development Officer
Jeroen Tonnaer is responsible for BD&L at PureIMS. He brings over 35 years worldwide experience in drug discovery-development and BD&L at both sides of the Pharma and biotech arena. Previously he was CBO of Cristal Therapeutics, Executive Director BD&L at Merck/MSD, and held various prior BD&L and R&D positions at Schering-Plough and Organon. His contributions to identifying the right partners and to arranging licensing or partnership agreements yielded several multi-million-$ licensing deals and multiple smaller scale collaborative partnerships. Dr. Tonnaer holds a PhD degree in pharmacology from the University of Utrecht and is a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP™). He is also member of the Advisory Board of Protinhi Therapeutics.
Frank Lambert
Executive Director Commercialization
Per start 2023 Frank Lambert serves PureIMS as Executive Director Commercialization to support the company’s strategy to commercialize its Cyclops™ DPI for partnering and co-development with pharma/biotech companies. Studying Human Movement Sciences in 1988 he graduated from the faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Groningen. Frank is a seasoned business development professional with a 20+ years record in commercial Contract Research Organizations (CRO) as ICON plc. and before PRA HealthSciences. Before he managed an Academic CRO at the University Medical Center in Groningen for a decade. Having lived and operated as Director of Business Development for four years in the United States, he returned to the Netherlands in 2008 to continue his activities in Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Frank acts as First Point of Contact for potential partners showing interest in developing combination products with PureIMS.
(flambert@pureims.com / M: +31 6517 07 297)
Floris Grasmeijer
PhD, Principal Scientist
Floris Grasmeijer is a pharmacist and is responsible for formulation and device development in his role as Principal Scientist at PureIMS. He performed a PhD in inhalation technology at the University of Groningen, after which he there continued his studies as a post-doctoral researcher. Besides his expertise in formulations and devices, Floris also has experience with the preparation of clinical trials. Floris is involved with PureIMS from the start: “It is very motivating to put theory to practice; to take the knowledge about powders and inhalers and use it to quickly pinpoint and solve problems as they arise and to develop products that actually make a difference to patients.”
Marcel Hoppentocht
PhD, Head of Program Management
Marcel Hoppentocht is a pharmacist and in view of his broad interest and organizational capacities his role as Head of Program Management suits him well. He performed a PhD in inhalation technology at the University of Groningen, during which the Cyclops™ DPI was developed and a first clinical trial with Cyclops™ was conducted. He continued as a post-doctoral researcher for two years during which he was Project Leader of formulation and inhaler development within the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) iABC project dedicated to developing inhaled antibiotics. Marcel is involved with PureIMS from the start: “Making Cyclops™ available to many patients and improving their quality of life, would be a dream come true.”
Wouter Dijkstra
Head of Production
Wouter Dijkstra is a pharmacist and responsible for production in his role as Head of Production at PureIMS. He studied pharmacy at the University of Groningen, after which he has worked for several pharmaceutical companies in different roles. Wouter has experience with manufacturing and release of Investigational Medicinal Products and compounded products. Wouter is involved with PureIMS since 2019: “It is a privilege to support the development of an amazingly innovative Dry Powder Inhaler and make a change for patients in need.”
Truus van den Bos
Office Manager
As Office Manager Truus van den Bos takes care of the administration, purchasing and human resources at PureIMS. After obtaining her bachelor’s degree in economics she worked in several administrative positions before joining PureIMS in 2017. “It gives me a great deal of satisfaction when everyone in the company can function to their full potential, when all resources are available, and the paperwork is handled properly.”
Roelof Kuper
Senior Technician
Roelof Kuper is a biotechnologist and works on the further development of PureIMS’s inhalation platform, Cyclops™. Roelof obtained a BSc in Biotechnology and a MSc in Molecular Life Science. Before joining PureIMS in March 2023 he has worked for different biotech companies where he was responsible for the development and implementation of various processes and new technologies in early and late-stage drug development programs. His strong research background, including topics in molecular biology, genetics and protein engineering are a valuable addition to the team. “The opportunity to further develop Cyclops™ to improve patient care and maximize quality of life is a great thing to do”.
Scientific advisory board
The scientific advisory board is an independent group of scientists and clinicians who hold no financial share in the company. The board cannot be held responsible for the decisions of the company.
Dr. Anne Haaije de Boer
Physical Process Engineer
Anne Haaije de Boer is engineer in unit operations for particle processing and retired research physicist of the University of Groningen. He has been the project leader of the inhalation group within the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy for 30 years. He and his group developed the basic concepts for several dry powder inhalers that reached the market, including AstraZeneca’s Genuair and PureIMS’s Cyclops. De Boer is still active on a voluntary basis for the university and highly motivated to advise PureIMS on design and development of new inhaler devices and formulation technology for further expansion of the Cyclops platform.
Prof. dr. Gerard Koppelman
Pediatric Pulmonologist
Gerard Koppelman is a clinician-scientist whose goal is to improve early diagnosis and prevention of asthma, and to optimize treatment of asthma in childhood. As a pediatric pulmonologist, he focuses on children with severe chronic lung disease and treats children with cystic fibrosis. In his research, Koppelman investigates diagnostic DNA tests for asthma and early biomarkers of disease. He also supervises a project on improving inhalation therapies in children with Cystic Fibrosis. Major accomplishments include the identification of novel genes for asthma, eczema and hay fever, as well as epigenetic signatures in childhood asthma.
Koppelman advises PureIMS on the development of inhalation therapy in Cystic Fibrosis.
Prof. dr. Teus van Laar
Professor of Neurology
Prof. Van Laar is clinical neurologist by training, with special expertise in Movement Disorders, especially on Parkinson’s disease (PD) and the effect of pharmacological interventions on this disease. The first years of his career have been focused on the treatment of advanced patients with PD, whereas at that time apomorphine was introduced in Europe. He has significantly contributed to the clinical dossier necessary to register apomorphine in the Netherlands. After its introduction he has performed multiple studies to establish the effect of apomorphine on motor- and non-motor aspects of PD. Thereafter, the focus of his interest moved towards the non-motor aspects of PD, especially on the cognitive deterioration, accompanied by visual hallucinations. He was one of the first neurologists in the Netherlands, examining the clinical effect and adverse effects of rivastigmine in PD dementia, and contributed to a pivotal study, published in the NEJM (Emre et al, NEJM 2004; 351:2509-18).
Prof. dr. Daan Touw
Hospital Pharmacist, Clinical Pharmacologist
Daan Touw is a hospital pharmacist and clinical pharmacologist whose goal is to improve treatment of patients in general. As head of the clinical pharmacological laboratory of the University Medical Center Groningen he focuses on the development of new clinical assays and the pharmacokinetic modelling of drugs used in infectious diseases such as Cystic Fibrosis and in transplantation. He supervises several projects aiming at a better understanding of pharmacokinetic variability within and between patients and using this knowledge to develop models that can aid in improving drug treatment outcomes.
Dr. Johan Wemer
Drug Development Consultant
Dr. Johan Wemer is PureIMS’ drug development advisor and brings over 30 years of drug research and development experience from academia, government and pharmaceutical industry. Before being co-founder and Medical and Scientific Director of early-phase clinical CRO Xendo Drug Development, now QPS Netherlands, he worked as Senior Medical Advisor for AstraZeneca (Sweden) and Pfizer (UK), as Associate Professor of Therapeutics at Utrecht University and as Head of the Department of Pharmacology at the National Institute of Public Health and Environment in the Netherlands. He was trained as a Pharmacist and as a Medical Doctor (now non-practicing) at the University of Amsterdam, holds a PhD in neuropharmacology from the Free University of Amsterdam and qualified as a clinical pharmacologist in the Netherlands and the UK.
In memoriam
Reinier Schwietert (CSO) - † 12 October 2022
PhD, Chief Scientific Officer
To our utmost sorrow Reinier suddenly passed away on Wednesday October 12, 2022. We consider it a privilege to have been able to work with Reinier and we value his professional contributions to PureIMS and his personal comradeship as a colleague. We wish his family and friends the strength required to cope with the unexpected loss of this remarkable person.