Dr. Lourens Bloem (PharmD, MSc) is assistant professor Clinical Therapeutics at the Centre for Clinical Therapeutics of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Pharmacology, within the Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS). He is a member of the Faculty of Science's Open Science Team (FOST).
Until December 2022, Lourens was also Programme Manager Drug Regulatory Science for the Utrecht Science Park, drawing on his specific research experience as well as previous 4-year work experience as a pharmacovigilance assessor at the MEB. Here, he was involved in the assessment of safety data and Risk Management Plans (RMPs) for medicines authorised on the national and European level (particularly in the field of psychiatry, neurology and the musculo-skeletal system).
Lourens performed his PhD studies at the division in the field of Drug Regulatory Science. These focused on aspects of evidence generation for regulatory decision-making on medicines as well as their effects on downstream decision-making, for example on reimbursement or in clinical practice. For this and subsequent research, collaboration was sought with the Dutch Medicines Evaluation Board (MEB), the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the National Health Care Institute (ZIN).
During his PhD studies, Lourens was chair of the first UIPS cohort of Fellows of the Future Medicines Graduate Programme (2016-2018), which is supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Furthermore, he is enrolled in the MSc Epidemiology Postgraduate programme of the University's Medical Centre, UMCU.
Pharmacist by training
Lourens obtained his PharmD (MSc) in 2016 at Utrecht University. As part of these studies he has done several internships, including a placement at the Netherlands Cancer Institute - Antoni van Leeuwenhoek hospital and an 8-month research placement at the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation (CHERE) of the University of Technology Sydney in collaboration with the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia.
Next to his Pharmacy studies, Lourens worked for three years at a community pharmacy. In addition, he was board member and founder of several organisations, for which he was nominated for the university's 2015 Prize for Exceptional Extra-curricular or Social Achievements.