John Kastelein

Dr. John Kastelein is founder and CSO of NewAmsterdam Pharma and part of the Executive Board. John is Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the Department of Vascular Medicine at the Academic Medical Center (AMC) of the University of Amsterdam, where he held the Strategic Chair of Genetics of Cardiovascular Disease. Professor Kastelein has published over 1.320 research papers in peer reviewed journals, including Nature Genetics, Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and Circulation and has a Hirsch index of 122 in January 2020. His citations reached over 680 in 2020 and in total over 74.800.

Dr. Kastelein is a member of the Steering Committees of numerous lipid lowering and cardiovascular intervention trials. His main interest is in the development of novel therapies for Cardiovascular Diseases and the genetic basis of dyslipidemia. Dr. Kastelein is chief executive officer (CEO) of the Vascular Resesarch Network (VRN), a site maintenance organization comprising over 50 hospitals in the Netherlands, involved in clinical trials for cardiometabolic disease. He is president of the Dutch Atherosclerosis Society and the National Scientific Committee on Familial Hypercholesterolemia and also a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology (FESC). In 2010 he was awarded the prestigious Dutch Heart Association prize of EUR 1 million and in 2011 the ZonMw Parel for his research in the field of gene therapy. Next to these functions, Dr. Kastelein is key advisor to a number of biotech and pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Kastelein was awarded a doctorate in Medicine (with Honours) from the University of Amsterdam, trained in internal medicine at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam, and trained in lipidology and molecular biology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.