Bridging the gap to the future

'2023 has been a fantastic year in many respects,' says Prof. Koos Burggraaf about his last full year as CEO (see text box at the end of this page). 'We have realised a wonderful turnover, many people received their PhD, more than 20% of our colleagues completed additional (vocational) training, we opened an infection unit in our own facility and a dedicated clinical research unit at Leiden University Medical Center, and we strengthened our strategic collaborations in the region and beyond.' Prof. Geert Jan Groeneveld was CMO and CSO in 2023 and became CEO of CHDR as of 19 February 2024. He adds: 'Our results have exceeded expectations, and this is evident across the entire organisation. Many of our staff have had to work hard in recent years because of the COVID-19 pandemic when we were temporarily unable to hire people. And now we see that all those efforts are paying off, which creates a very good vibe'.

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For this Annual Report, the Board chose the theme 'Bridging the Gap'. According to Burggraaf, the motto aligns with CHDR in multiple ways. It has always been our core business to build bridges between preclinical and clinical drug development, and between studies in healthy participants and in patients. But the theme is also about building bridges between academic researchers and between academia and pharmaceutical companies.' Groeneveld: 'Because of our unique position, we can increasingly build connections between various partners. After all, we are a non-profit foundation with a focus on science, but also a service-oriented organisation with an eye for market needs. Our Research Directors have a powerful network in academia and industry. That makes it easier to build bridges.'

A recurring topic in discussions with the Board is also the bridge between past and future, at CHDR and throughout the industry. 'We were entering a period of rapid growth when the pandemic broke out,' says Groeneveld. 'We expect that growth to continue for the time being. This requires continuous improvements in our operations and planning, but we also need to reflect on our corporate culture. We have set both of these processes in motion in the past year.'

Burggraaf additionally comments on CHDR's future in the broader context of drug development: 'Innovation has always been one of our driving forces. And that fits well in these times, when drug development is rapidly advancing, and the traditional boundaries of pre-clinical and clinical research are changing. For example, there is an increasing emphasis on data collection and advanced data analysis. We want to respond to this by working with our clinical collaboration partners to start collecting data from patients, preferably from the moment of diagnosis. This deep phenotyping should lead to better insights into how drugs work and is a step towards personalising pharmacotherapy.'

This focus on growth and development, bridging the gap to the future, was also central to a strategy session that the Board organised in January 2023. Two concrete ideas that came out of this are described in more detail in this Annual Report: the abovementioned Deep Phenotyping initiative and the CNS Profiler. Groeneveld: 'The CNS Profiler is a compact version of our trusted NeuroCart®, which allows key tests from the NeuroCart to be performed at other sites, partners or other CRO’s. We train the staff to use the CNS profiler, and the data is sent to us for analysis. The aim is for more NeuroCart studies, in more locations. We are confident that this meets the needs of various customers and that we can grow within the confines of our current capacity.'