Roel joined Glycostem as CEO in June 2023. 
Previously, Roel served as CEO at InteRNA Technologies, building the oncology/neuroscience focused company from inception to clinical stage with a lead clinical candidate in immuno-oncology. Before, Roel was senior manager in the corporate finance biotech team at the Dutch merchant bank Kempen & Co involved in private funding, M&A and IPO’s at Euronext of life sciences companies, and he held several management positions at Kreatech Diagnostics (sold to Leica Biosystems), among which VP Corporate and Business Development. Roel holds MSc and PhD degrees from Radboud University Nijmegen (NL). During his academic career he worked at the Roche Institute for Molecular Biology (Nutley, NJ), at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston, MA) and at the Netherlands Cancer Institute NKI/AvL in Amsterdam. 
Roel received his MBA from Nyenrode Business School (NL). Roel is also a Board member of HollandBIO, the Dutch biotech sector association.