Dirk Kars is a Senior Partner in the global Life Sciences division, based in Cologne, Germany. From 2006 to 2010, he was based in the company’s Paris office, building & leading the local Life Sciences team. From 2007 to 2020, he was in charge of the Life Sciences team in Milan, Italy.
He studied International Relations, Economics and Law at the University of Constance and the University of Warwick. He received his Master Degree from the University of Constance in 1999 and joined Simon-Kucher & Partners in the same year.
Dirk supports international pharmaceutical and biotech companies in strategic marketing, international pricing, contracting and market access strategies. He focuses especially on the European healthcare markets.
He has led major industry benchmarking studies on market access operations, M&S models applied by biotech, licensing and acquisition trends, as well as new monetization models for pharmaceutical & biotech innovations. A special area of expertise are (ultra-) orphan drugs and highly innovative gene therapies.
He is a frequent speaker at international conferences and has published in industry publications such as Scrip, Decision Resources and PharmInd. He is a guest lecturer at the MSc in Pharmaceutical Medicine of the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.
His key areas of therapy expertise include diabetes, oncology, ophthalmology, cardiovascular diseases, hematology, dermatology, contraception, vaccines, and various orphan and ultra-orphan indications.