As of 12 June 2026, following a positive recommendation from the Executive Board of the University of Amsterdam, the RARE-NL Foundation has appointed Saco de Visser as Endowed Professor of ‘Medicines and Society, in particular sustainable drug development’ at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Amsterdam.

Through this professorship, De Visser will further dedicate himself to ensuring that medicines which might otherwise fall through the cracks can still reach patients in a responsible and affordable way. This includes medicines for rare diseases, which are often developed for small patient populations, as well as older medicines for which new applications are discovered, but which do not automatically find their way to registration, reimbursement, and patient care.

Within RARE-NL, we work from case to system: De Visser will further develop the insights gained from successful trajectories, together with the RARE-NL team and FAST, the Center for Future Affordable Sustainable Therapy Development, into sustainable routes for development and access.

About Saco de Visser

After studying pharmaceutical chemistry at VU Amsterdam, De Visser obtained his PhD on question-based drug development at the Centre for Human Drug Research (CHDR) at Leiden University. He subsequently worked briefly at Nycomed, now Takeda, and as Director of Cluster Development at the Leiden Bio Science Park. He then joined ZonMw, where he established, among other initiatives, the Good Use of Medicines programme and, within it, the Drug Rediscovery funding round. From that role, he became quartermaster for FAST.

As Scientific Director of FAST, which is now hosted by TNO, De Visser has been of great value in the establishment of RARE-NL as a national hub for rare diseases and drug repurposing. Since the start, he has also been our key link with FAST, where he serves as Scientific Director.

As a clinical pharmacologist, Saco brings substantial scientific expertise. At least as important, however, is his ability to bring people and organisations together. Both nationally and internationally, he knows how to build connections and turn initiatives into reality.

He is eager to use that network for a mission that is also central to RARE-NL: testing new development routes, learning how the system can work differently, and then putting those lessons into practice.

We are incredibly proud of the establishment of this chair within RARE-NL, and we could not have imagined a better person to hold it than Saco de Visser.