Hans Hofstraat recently started as a freelance consultant, after his early retirement as Vice President and Senior Fellow & Program Manager at Philips’ Chief Technology Office (CTO). At Philips he worked with teams in CTO, Business and Markets across the globe, on innovations in clinical domains such as Cardiovascular Diseases, Oncology and Neurology, and towards universal and equitable Access to Care, aiming to combine clinical insights and context with the opportunities offered by digital healthcare. Together with partners Hans is passionate about identifying major needs in the health-technology domain, and to address these by developing meaningful solutions underpinned by proven outcomes. He was involved in setting up and supporting several start-up’s, like Biocartis and InnoSign. Major public-private partnerships he initiated were the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Health, headquartered in Munich with a European scope, and the Dutch Center for Translational Molecular Medicine. His aim always is to achieve innovations that broaden access to appropriate care and improve quality of life for patients and healthcare professionals. Hans joined Philips Research from Akzo Nobel Central Research. He also worked as (part-time) Professor at the Institute of Molecular Chemistry of the University of Amsterdam, and at the Public Works Department of the Dutch Ministry of Transport and Public Works in The Hague. Dr Hofstraat originally trained as a chemist and completed his PhD thesis in physical chemistry at Free University Amsterdam. He worked as lecturer at the Free University, the Free University Medical Center, and the University College of Swaziland in Kwaluseni. He completed a post-doc at ETH Zürich, Switzerland. Dr Hofstraat has authored about 200 publications (h-index 43, Google Scholar), and holds 10 granted US patents, with over 80 patent applications in various countries, covering 25 patent families across a range of fields.