Benien Vingerhoed | Managing Director, FAST

Since January 2022, Benien Vingerhoed-van Aken is Director of the Centre for Future Affordable & Sustainable Therapy development (FAST), a centre of expertise and collaboration, commissioned by the Dutch government (Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy). FAST strengthens the necessary connecting link between academia, industry and clinic on a number of spearheads including cell- and gene therapies, in order to get new treatments to patients as quickly as possible, at acceptable costs. Dr Vingerhoed holds a Medical Biology degree from the University of Utrecht and completed her PhD in experimental internal medicine at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam. She worked for ten years in international clinical trial management of phase I-III studies in various diseases at the Center for Human Drug Research (CHDR), Organon and Centocor. Before joining FAST, Benien was Program Manager at The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw). Here she initiated the ZonMw Rational Pharmacotherapy Program, and headed the department responsible for funding and monitoring approximately 200 research projects, patient registries and projects focussed on clinical practice. The mission of this funding program is to ensure that (existing) medication is deployed in a more effective, safe and efficient manner, to enhance the quality of pharmacotherapeutic care for patients and to improve cost-efficiency in care and/or for society.