Our reason
In 2021, Roald’s wife, Yam, began experiencing the first symptoms of a brain tumor. She suffered from headaches, fainting spells, and had sudden difficulty recalling words. Initially, it was believed these symptoms were caused by migraines or depression. But after a scan, it quickly became clear that something was seriously wrong: Yam had a brain tumor the size of an orange in the front of her brain.
Fortunately, she was able to undergo surgery quickly at Erasmus MC, and after the resection, her symptoms disappeared. However, this marked the start of mentally and physically demanding treatment process involving radiation and chemotherapy. The treatments for brain tumors have remained almost unchanged for around 25 years, and their effectiveness is still very limited.
Frustrated by the lack of effective treatments, Roald began investigating why so little progress had been made over the past decades. The answer, in essence, was simple: the biological complexity combined with the rarity of this disease makes it unattractive for Big Pharma to invest money in. This challenge far beyond brain tumors: it affects many forms of (rare) cancer.
Hospitals conducting their own research often have only a few dozen eligible patients who can be part of a research study, while several thousands are needed for statistically meaningful studies. Although collaboration in this field is crucial, it happens too rarely due to technical, legal, and organizational barriers.
That insight led to the foundation of Yamicc: a foundation designed to make collaboration between hospitals easier by removing as many of those obstacles as possible.
The name Yamicc stands for You And Me In Curing Cancer, reflecting both the personal story behind its founding and the belief that only together we can accelerate progress for patients with rare cancers.
You And Me In Curing Cancer
YAMICC
Our team
A small group of passionate and ambitious people. Alongside Yamicc’s core team works a specialised group of renowned medical experts, top researchers and seasoned board members to find the most effective treatments for rare cancer patients.
Roald Kruit
Co-Founder, Chairman Board
Roald was a co-founder of Mendix, which grew out to become the leading low-code platform in the world. With this experience he brings entrepreneurial drive and extensive IT knowledge to the foundation. The loss of his wife to brain cancer, makes him extremely motivated to make real impact.
Carli Wischhoff
Co-Founder, Head of Relations
Carli has a background in professional sports and brings extensive experience in Strategy & Partner Management. Her father got diagnosed with a GIST tumor, luckily he fully recovered through innovative targeted therapy. She experienced firsthand the enormous value of effective treatments on the life of a patient and their loved ones. She is highly driven to establish new breakthroughs in rare cancer research and care.
Clemens Dirven
Board Member
Clemens has been fighting brain tumours as a neurosurgeon and departmental head (at Erasmus MC) for his entire career. He distinguishes himself with his drive to pioneer in new treatments and focus on collaboration. This tremendous amount of (medical) experience is truly essential for the foundation.
Bert van der Schelde
Board Member
Bert is an experienced financial professional with in-depth knowledge of optimizing and structuring organizations. With years of experience in the business world, he brings valuable administrative expertise to Yamicc. His passion lies in building healthy, future-proof organizations that can maximize their impact. Thanks to his drive and substantive expertise, he contributes to a sustainable and transparent development of our mission and charitable cause.
Mark Wegman
Advisor Technology/AI
Mark has nearly 30 years of experience designing and building secure, large-scale, and data-intensive systems across industries. With a focus on AI and machine learning, he combines strategic insight with hands-on expertise to help turn complex ideas into reliable, scalable tools that support researchers in advancing cancer research.
Mark van der Waart
Advisor
Mark advises, connects and supports various foundations/charities such as ‘het Zeldzame Ziekten Fonds‘ and Yamicc from a personal passion. In addition, Mark brings more than 25 years of professional expertise and financial experience. With Mark’s thoughtful advise and network of people, he supports Yamicc tremendously in achieving our goals.
Sanne Ydema
Head of Business Development
With experience in fundraising, sales, and connecting mission with business—including as Strategic Key Account Manager at KWF Cancer Control—Sanne brings broad expertise in building sustainable partnerships. At Yamicc, she focuses particularly on business development, marketing, and strategic fundraising. For Sanne, Yamicc feels like an extension of the mission she believes in: working entrepreneurially on tangible solutions, with the determination to actually implement them. For the patient.
Lisa de Man
Head of Legal
Lisa is an experienced legal professional with expertise in commercial contracts, European law, compliance, and technology services. Previously working from Singapore as Legal Counsel for an international organization, she handled complex and diverse legal matters. As Head of Legal, she is responsible for governance, regulatory compliance, contractual frameworks, and data privacy. She establishes the legal foundation that enables Yamicc to achieve its strategic objectives.
Jack Pieters
Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Consultant
Jack is a bioinformatician with a passion for translational research. His expertise lies in analyzing complex biomedical data leading to valuable insights. At Yamicc, Jack will focus on data analysis to generate patient-centric results quickly and effectively.”
“Finding effective treatments for (rare) cancer patients using innovative technology”
Our ambition
Yamicc has ambitious goals to make a significant impact on improving care for (rare) cancer patients in the Netherlands and internationally through the use of IT technology and data.
Our ambition is to deliver a highly advanced and innovative IT platform and related services that improve cancer care, particularly in the following two domains:
- Supporting access to relevant information and data for research and medical treatments
- Supporting administrative processes in research and medical treatments
We aim to become the preferred platform in Europe. While profit maximization is not our goal, we do seek a sustainable business model to ensure the continuity of our services for the future.
Our approach
We believe in the power of focus. Therefore, our initial efforts are concentrated on the rare cancer domain. Once our approach has matured, we will expand to include patients with other types of cancer.
We are convinced that the most effective way to explore and validate our platform and services is within the context of clinical trials. This environment not only provides legal and institutional protection for medical specialists but also generates scientific evidence that demonstrates how our solutions enable care and research of equal or even higher quality than before.
Instrumental to our approach is the collection of comprehensive multi-omics datasets of rare cancers in a standardized and structured way, ranging from clinical to genetic data. These datasets form the foundation for both fundamental and translational research.
Initially, this prospective dataset will be collected through clinical trials initiated by Yamicc in collaboration with several hospitals.
For example, within Erasmus MC we have developed the ReDiReCCT-GB trial, in which every new glioblastoma patient can participate and will be followed from diagnosis onward. The goal of this data collection is to identify (repurposed) drugs that are specifically effective for the individual patient.
To facilitate and support this process, which typically involves data from multiple sources and sites, we are building our data-driven Trial Execution Platform, focused on the secure and seamless collection, processing, and sharing of research data within a governed framework.
Our expertise in applying innovative technologies such as low-code and artificial intelligence is essential for this realization and sets us apart from traditional research platforms.
Finally, we strongly believe in the power of collaboration. That is why we have launched a partner program within a united ecosystem that brings together research institutions, medical organizations, software vendors, NGOs, and patient advocacy groups.
United by one shared mission: finding effective treatments for rare cancers, together.
Our policy
In our policy plan you can read more about our key objectives, activities, and how we are organized to find more effective treatments for patients with an oncological orphan disease.
Additionally, Yamicc board members receive no remuneration for their work other than, for example, compensation for costs incurred and attendance fees. Our foundation acts entirely on a non-profit basis and therefore does not maintain more assets than is reasonably necessary for the continuity of the projects to achieve our goals.
Want to know more? Download our policy here!