René Spaargaren is a Medical Doctor with over 25 years experience in design and execution of clinical trials in medtech and pharma. As founder of ULYSSES Clinical, he is consulting for medtech start-ups and pharmaceutical companies.

Before founding ULYSSES Clinical, he served as Chief Medical Officer for the start-up STENTYS; in this position, he was instrumental in the fast-track execution of the APPOSITION program which was the foundation for the IPO in 2011. Also, he obtained FDA approval for a 20€M IDE study and managed its execution.

Prior to STENTYS, Dr. Spaargaren was Vice-President International Clinical and Regulatory Affairs for ev3, currently Covidien/Medtronic; through the execution of a clinical trial to support the introduction of the EverFlex stent, ev3 obtained a 40% market share within one month of introduction, made ev3 key player in the endovascular arena.

He also served as Medical Director Europe for Boston Scientific (built up a 30 people clinical department and led the clinical development of the TAXUS stent which made the share price quadruple), Medtronic and for Yamanouchi Pharmaceuticals. He obtained his medical degree (cum laude) from the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.