NEUVOGEN is a biotechnology company that is developing therapeutic cancer vaccines for solid tumors.
Our whole tumor cell vaccine platform uses systematic, data driven engineering to create novel products that can delay and prevent relapse. Each indication specific vaccine delivers an unprecedented breadth of targets and activates cytotoxic T cells against those targets using our proprietary activation technology.
We believe that this best-in-class approach is part of the next pillar in cancer treatment.
Create therapies that can substantially extend the lives of patients with solid tumor cancers
Revolutionize cancer treatment using next generation whole tumor cell vaccines to delay or prevent relapse
Highly accomplished leaders in the fields of oncology, immunology, and cancer vaccine development
OUR
LEADERSHIP
Mr. Todd Binder is Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of NEUVOGEN since its inception, and leads the company’s overall strategy to serve patients through the development of treatments for cancer. Prior to NEUVOGEN, he served as Chief Financial Officer of ZetaRx, a CAR T-Cell company where he gained a deep understanding of the promise of cellular immunotherapies. While at ZetaRx, he and the management team developed the lead program that Juno, now Bristol-Myers Squibb, is taking to market. Previously, Mr. Binder advised and invested in preclinical and clinical stage biotechnology companies. Mr. Binder learned the key value drivers for successful investments and companies in biotech while working as a Principal at Coastview Capital LLC. He has served as an Officer in the US Army, and as a consultant at McKinsey and Company, and has served in a number of line management positions. Mr. Binder holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and dual BA degrees in Economics and History from Pomona College. Mr. Binder also serves as a Board Member of Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope.
Christian Ottensmeier MD PhD FRCP graduated and began his training at the Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster, Germany. After a training fellowship in the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA, he moved to Southampton in 1994, where he completed his oncology training. Following completion of his PhD on the molecular immunology of B-cells in the laboratory of Professor Freda Stevenson, he became a Consultant in Medical Oncology in Southampton University Hospitals and Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton in 2001. In 2007 he was appointed to a chair in Experimental Cancer Medicine in Southampton and in 2019 to an Associate Professorship at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, CA, USA. He joined the University of Liverpool and the Liverpool Head and Neck Institute as Professor of Immuno-Oncology in August 2020. His clinical commitments are to the Clatterbridge Cancer Center NHS Foundation Trust, where he develops his practice to deliver more effective immunotherapy for patient benefit. He mainly works in head and neck cancer and lung cancer. Christian’s core academic interest links to his clinical practice: to understand and modulate adaptive immune responses in patients, to inform the development of immunotherapies to treat solid cancers. His laboratory studies how best to induce tumour-antigen specific immunity through vaccination and how to overcome immune suppressive features of the tumour microenvironment. As a result, his work focuses on three linked but distinct areas of investigation: the study of antigen-specific immune responses in patients, assay development and validation, both underpinning mechanistic studies in human to understand adaptive immune responses to tumour antigens. This work is underpinned by systematic tissue collection, to which ~2000 patients have been recruited since 2014. In parallel to investigator initiated studies, he contributes to a broad portfolio of clinical trials in solid cancers; he has co-developed a number of national NCRI studies in melanoma and lung cancer. He has served on a mulitple national and international peer review committees as well as on advisory boards and DSMBs for industry led studies; he is a member Cancer Immunoguiding panel of the European “CIMT” collaborative, a member of EATI and of the editorial boards for the Journal of Translational Immunology, Cancer Immunology & Immunotherapy, and the newly founded open source BSI Journal “Immunotherapy Advances”.
Dr. Moscariello brings over 20 years of biotechnology experience and brings a wealth of CMC experience across a wide number of modalities. Most recently, John was the Vice President of Process Development within Cell Therapy Development and Operations at Bristol Myers Squibb. John was accountable for the cellular processes for BMS’s cell therapy portfolio from initial IND through commercialization and life cycle management. Before this role, John led the Gene Delivery Process and Analytical Development organization accountable for the process and analytical development required for the viral vector and gene editing raw materials required for BMS’s cellular therapies.
Prior to BMS, John was the Vice President of Process Development at AGC Biologics (formerly CMC Biologics) where he led all technical aspects of CMC development including cell line development, upstream and downstream process development, analytical and formulation development and process and analytical transfer into manufacturing and QC. John started his career at Amgen where he progressed to lead various roles in process development and global manufacturing science and technology. In these roles, John has supported the global commercialization of various cell therapies and biologics as well as the introduction of products into global clinical trials.
Mr. Keith Pelton serves as Treasurer and Controller at NEUVOGEN where he is responsible for financial reporting and supporting Operations. Mr. Pelton is a finance professional with over 20 years of experience including mergers and acquisitions, public accounting, and healthcare finance, and has held positions at Deloitte, Goldman Sachs, and United Healthcare. Mr. Pelton also led finance and accounting at Coastview Capital, a Los Angeles-based biotechnology venture capital firm, for more than seven years. Mr. Pelton received a BA degree in Business Economics from the University of California Los Angeles.
Dr. Gilbert is the former Chief Medical Officer of Juno Therapeutics and Chief Medical Officer of JW Therapeutics, during which time he was responsible for development, approval and medical support for three CAR-T products in at least five hematological indications and development of CAR-T and TCR-T in oncology and autoimmune indications. Dr. Gilbert has also been Head of Global Oncology Clinical Development for Schering-Bayer Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for worldwide development of more than a dozen clinical assets, including biologicals and chemotherapy, in hematology, oncology and autoimmunity.
Mr. George Montgomery has more than three decades of experience raising capital and providing strategic advisory to entrepreneurial biotech and medical technology companies. He has served as managing director at WestRiver Group, and is a member of the board of directors for Ashvattha Therapeutics Inc. He served as Chief Financial Officer and member of the Executive Committee at Coherus BioSciences, and is a former board member of Lumen Bioscience, Viome, Crossover Health, BEFORE Brands Inc., and Boston Pharmaceuticals. Prior to his executive roles, George worked in healthcare banking for over twenty years, and was a Managing Director at JPMorgan H&Q and Cowen & Company and worked at CSFB. He received his bachelor’s degree from Yale University and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Shanna Peek joined the Neuvogen team, as the Head of Corporate Strategy and Program Leadership in August 2024. She brings over 20 years of leadership and operational experience in both public and private biopharmaceutical companies. Over the course of her career, she has played a critical role in the development, approval, and commercialization of oncology cellular based products, including PROVENGE® and Breyanzi®.
Most recently, Shanna was the SVP of Corporate Operations at Sana Therapeutics, a clinical-stage cell and gene therapy company. During her time at Sana, her strategic and operational leadership transitioned the company from a privately held academic research focused company to a publicly traded and fully integrated development organization. In her role, Shanna led several key corporate initiatives, as well as led the teams responsible for facilities, lab operations, site operations, IT, cybersecurity, and communications.
Prior to Sana, Shanna was VP of Program and Alliance Management at Juno Therapeutics where she led several program teams and the team responsible for providing program and alliance management support to portfolio of product candidates. In addition, she played an instrumental role in the strategic collaboration and company acquisition by Celgene.
Prior to Juno, she spent 12 years at Dendreon, holding positions of increasing responsibility across corporate strategy, program leadership, early commercial development, clinical development, clinical operations, and data management. Shanna received her BA in business administration from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington and is an active member of her local community.
Mr. Gordon Binder is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of NEUVOGEN. He was Chief Executive Officer of Amgen, Inc. the world’s largest biotech company, from 1988 through 2000. During Mr. Binder’s tenure as CEO, the company grew from 400 employees to 7,000 to rank within the top 20 pharmaceutical companies in worldwide revenues, the top 15 in U.S. sales, and the top 10 in market capitalization. He joined Amgen in 1982 as CFO, having previously served as CFO of System Development Corporation, a computer system and software company primarily serving the federal government, and in financial management positions at Litton Industries and Ford Motor Company. Mr. Binder served as Chairman of BIO, the biotechnology industry trade association and as Chairman of PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry trade association. He also served as a member of the Board of Directors of MIT, Caltech, AEI (the American Enterprise Institute) and Pepperdine University. After retiring from Amgen, Mr. Binder founded Coastview Capital LLC, a biotech venture capital firm. He is a graduate of Purdue University and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Mr. Binder is the author of Science Lessons: What the Business of Biotech Taught Me About Management.
Mr. Todd Binder is Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of NEUVOGEN since its inception, and leads the company’s overall strategy to serve patients through the development of treatments for cancer. Prior to NEUVOGEN, he served as Chief Financial Officer of ZetaRx, a CAR T-Cell company where he gained a deep understanding of the promise of cellular immunotherapies. While at ZetaRx, he and the management team developed the lead program that Juno, now Bristol-Myers Squibb, is taking to market. Previously, Mr. Binder advised and invested in preclinical and clinical stage biotechnology companies. Mr. Binder learned the key value drivers for successful investments and companies in biotech while working as a Principal at Coastview Capital LLC. He has served as an Officer in the US Army, and as a consultant at McKinsey and Company, and has served in a number of line management positions. Mr. Binder holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and dual BA degrees in Economics and History from Pomona College. Mr. Binder also serves as a Board Member of Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope.
Mr. Denny Lanfear is a member of the Board of Directors at NEUVOGEN. He serves as Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Coherus BioSciences, the world’s largest biosimilar company. He is a biosimilar pioneer and biopharmaceutical leader with a proven track record of successful entrepreneurial vision and achievement. In 2010, after decades working in the biopharmaceutical industry, Mr. Lanfear founded Coherus BioSciences with the vision of improving the public’s access to high-quality, life-changing medicines. Under his leadership, Coherus BioSciences was transformed from an unfunded startup into the industry’s leading pure play biosimilar company, with over $1.25 billion in funding being raised since its inception. Coherus has experienced outstanding success with the launch of its first drug, UDENYCA® (pegfilgrastim-cbqv). A dedicated entrepreneur, Mr. Lanfear founded and served as CEO at two other companies before Coherus: Saronyx, Inc., a drug development software services company, and the biopharmaceutical company InteKrin Therapeutics. Mr. Lanfear has held various senior leadership roles at Amgen Inc., serving as Vice President of Process Development and Vice President of Market Development. During his 13-year tenure at Amgen he also acquired substantial operations experience, and was tasked with integrating more than 2,500 operations and staff worldwide after the company’s explosive growth. Mr. Lanfear’s product development experience includes various leadership positions with multiple product development programs including growth factors, somatotrophins, and neurotrophins, having directed efforts from preclinical studies to Phase 3 clinical trials. Mr. Lanfear holds BS degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry from Michigan State University and an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dr. Evgeny Zaytsev has more than twenty years of investment experience in life sciences. He is a co-founder and managing partner at Bering Capital, a San Francisco-based venture firm focused on novel biotech and medical technologies. Prior to Bering Capital, he co-founded and was a general partner at Helix Ventures, a life sciences venture capital firm. Prior to that, Dr. Zaytsev was a partner with venture capital pioneer Pitch Johnson at Asset Management Company, one of the oldest firms in Silicon Valley.
Dr. Zaytsev has been a board member of a number of public and private companies and has been involved in over 35 investments in biomedical companies, including successes such as Atea Pharmaceuticals (IPO NASDAQ: AVIR), Transcend Medical (acquired by Alcon), Clearside Biomedical (IPO NASDAQ: CLSD), Coherus Biosciences (IPO NASDAQ: CHRS), BiPar Sciences (acquired by Sanofi-Aventis), and Chimerix (IPO NASDAQ: CMRX), among others. He also co-founded and served as Executive Chairman at Altesa BioSciences.
Trained as a physician and scientist, Dr. Zaytsev has been involved in various research and drug development programs and is an author or co-author of more than 70 publications. He earned his M.D. (cum laude) in 1991 and his Ph.D. in physiology in 1993, both from Altai State Medical University, and his M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2002.
Dr. Ivor Elrifi is CEO of a publicly traded biotech company. Prior to that, he was the global chair of Cooley LLP’s patent counseling and prosecution practice group. His practice included patent prosecution, litigation, arbitration, licensing and transactional work with a focus on novel therapeutic treatments, biotechnology, genetics, diagnostics, biomarkers, drug formulations and medical devices. Dr. Elrifi counseled clients worldwide in developing and implementing patent strategies and in the prosecution, licensing and enforcement of patents. He has extensive experience in advising clients on transactional work and regularly counseled clients with respect to investments, mergers and acquisitions. He also advised plaintiffs and defendants in patent litigation and arbitration cases.
Before joining Cooley, Dr. Elrifi was co-chair and section manager of Mintz Levin’s intellectual property practice and a member of the firm’s management committee. Earlier in his career, he served as patent counsel and then general counsel and vice president for CytoTherapeutics in Providence, Rhode Island, and as patent counsel to Modex Therapeutics in Lausanne, Switzerland. He has spoken at numerous international conferences, and he has written numerous articles for leading legal and scientific publications.
Dr. Elrifi is an elected member of the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, a global honorary society of attorneys, judges, law faculty and legal scholars. He received his J.D. from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University in 1989 and Ph.D. from Queen’s University at Kingston, Biology in 1986, and is admitted to practice law in California, Massachusetts, New York, Ontario, Canada.
Mark W. Frohlich, MD, has led the development of cellular immunotherapies for cancer for more than two decades. He served as Executive Vice President of Portfolio Strategy at Juno Therapeutics. Previously, he was Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development of Dendreon Corp, where he led teams responsible for the U.S. and European approval of Provenge™, the first FDA licensed cellular immunotherapy for cancer. Prior to joining Dendreon, he served as Medical Director of Xcyte Therapies Inc., where he pursued the development of an autologous T-cell therapy for cancer. Dr. Frohlich was an Assistant Adjunct Professor of Medicine (Hematology/Oncology) at the University of California, San Francisco, where he was active in translational and clinical research, and worked closely with Dr. Eric Small, a lead investigator in the phase 3 trials of Provenge™. He is a board-certified medical oncologist, trained at the University of California, San Francisco. He received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School after graduating from Yale College with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Economics.
Dr. Kendall M. Mohler serves as NEUVOGEN’s science advisor and operational board member. Dr. Mohler is Chief Development Officer at Accelerator Life Science Partners, bringing more than three decades of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, including several years of leading scientific research and development teams in the areas of autoimmune disease, inflammation, and oncology. He works closely with all Accelerator Life Science Partner I portfolio companies, where he provides oversight over key scientific research and product development activities. Prior to joining Accelerator, Dr. Mohler served as Senior Vice President of Research and Chief Scientific Officer of Juno Therapeutics Inc. He also served as Chief Science Officer at ZetaRx, a predecessor company that was acquired by Juno. Prior to Juno, Dr. Mohler co-founded Trubion Pharmaceuticals Inc., and served as their Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President, overseeing the development of several first-in-class product candidates and supporting several partnerships with global pharmaceutical companies. Prior to Trubion, Dr. Mohler served as Vice President of Biological Sciences of Immunex Corporation, where he led research and development activities in the areas of transplantation, autoimmunity & inflammation. He was the preclinical lead for Enbrel’s® (etanercept) research and development activities and successfully shepherded the product from inception of the development program through BLA approval. Dr. Mohler has published more than 35 manuscripts and is a named inventor on multiple issued patents and pending patent applications. He received a PhD in Immunology from the University of Texas Health Science Center and a BS from the University of Kansas.
Christian Ottensmeier MD PhD FRCP graduated and began his training at the Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster, Germany. After a training fellowship in the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA, he moved to Southampton in 1994, where he completed his oncology training. Following completion of his PhD on the molecular immunology of B-cells in the laboratory of Professor Freda Stevenson, he became a Consultant in Medical Oncology in Southampton University Hospitals and Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton in 2001. In 2007 he was appointed to a chair in Experimental Cancer Medicine in Southampton and in 2019 to an Associate Professorship at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, CA, USA. He joined the University of Liverpool and the Liverpool Head and Neck Institute as Professor of Immuno-Oncology in August 2020. His clinical commitments are to the Clatterbridge Cancer Center NHS Foundation Trust, where he develops his practice to deliver more effective immunotherapy for patient benefit. He mainly works in head and neck cancer and lung cancer. Christian’s core academic interest links to his clinical practice: to understand and modulate adaptive immune responses in patients, to inform the development of immunotherapies to treat solid cancers. His laboratory studies how best to induce tumour-antigen specific immunity through vaccination and how to overcome immune suppressive features of the tumour microenvironment. As a result, his work focuses on three linked but distinct areas of investigation: the study of antigen-specific immune responses in patients, assay development and validation, both underpinning mechanistic studies in human to understand adaptive immune responses to tumour antigens. This work is underpinned by systematic tissue collection, to which ~2000 patients have been recruited since 2014. In parallel to investigator initiated studies, he contributes to a broad portfolio of clinical trials in solid cancers; he has co-developed a number of national NCRI studies in melanoma and lung cancer. He has served on a mulitple national and international peer review committees as well as on advisory boards and DSMBs for industry led studies; he is a member Cancer Immunoguiding panel of the European “CIMT” collaborative, a member of EATI and of the editorial boards for the Journal of Translational Immunology, Cancer Immunology & Immunotherapy, and the newly founded open source BSI Journal “Immunotherapy Advances”.
Dr. Jaffee is an internationally recognized expert in cancer immunology and pancreatic cancer. She is Deputy Director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Co-Director of the Skip Viragh Pancreatic Cancer Center and Associate Director of the Bloomberg Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Her research focus is on developing novel immunotherapies for the treatment and prevention of pancreatic cancer. Her recent work has focused on developing novel biomarker driven immunotherapy clinical trials to dissect the complex inflammatory signals within the tumor microenvironment. Through collaborations with computational biologists, her team has identified a number of immune suppressive signals that regulate pancreatic cancer development and progression. Dr. Jaffee is a Past President of AACR. She has served on a number of committees at the National Cancer Institute, including the co-chair of the Biden Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel which identified high impact research priorities for the NCI. She currently serves as Chief Medical Advisor to the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research. She is the inaugural director of the Convergence Institute for Integrating Technologies and Computational Sciences at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Jaffee is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the SITC Academy of Immuno-Oncology and a Fellow of the AACR Academy. Most recently, she was appointed chair of President Biden’s Cancer Panel.
Robert D. Schreiber, PhD is the Andrew M. and Jane M. Bursky Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He is also professor of molecular microbiology, founding scientific director of the Bursky Center for Human Immunology and Immunotherapy Programs and co-head of the Tumor Immunology Program of the Washington University Siteman Comprehensive Cancer Center. Schreiber is a cytokine biologist and tumor immunologist who studies naturally- and therapeutically induced immune responses to cancer. At a time when the field had discounted any role for the immune system in cancer development and control, Schreiber showed conclusively that the immune system is not only capable of preventing cancer outgrowth but also sculpting cancer immunogenicity by a process he called cancer immunoediting. Based on that work, Schreiber and colleagues went on to show that tumor specific mutant neoantigens are favored targets of cancer immunoediting and of immune checkpoint therapy and can be used to generate effective therapeutic anti-cancer responses in both mouse models of cancer and in human cancer patients. This work has formed the foundation for a personalized cancer immunotherapy approach that is being used and tested in multiple institutions across the world. During his career, Dr. Schreiber has received many distinguished awards and honors including, among others, the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology from the Cancer Research Institute (CRI); the Charles Rodolphe Brupbacher Prize for Cancer Research; the Balzan Prize; the Lloyd Old Prize from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and CRI; the 2023 Richard V. Smalley Memorial Award from the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), the 2023 AACR-Princess Takamatsu Memorial Lectureship Award and the 2024 Takeda/New York Academy of Sciences Innovators in Science Award in Cancer Immunology (Senior Scientist). Schreiber is a Fellow of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, The American Association for Cancer Research Academy, The American Association of Immunologists, and the Academy of Immuno-Oncology (SITC). He is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the US National Academy of Sciences.
Stephen A. Sherwin, M.D., has spent over 35 years in the biotechnology industry, helping to create and manage companies that discover and develop new treatments for patients with cancer. Dr. Sherwin was the first medical doctor hired by Genentech, Inc. and served as its Vice President of Clinical Research. During his career, Dr. Sherwin co-founded and served as Chief Executive Officer and/or Chairman of industry-leading companies. Dr. Sherwin served as the Chief Executive Officer of Cell Genesys, Inc., an immuno-oncology company that developed GVAX (a first-generation whole tumor cell vaccine) and first-generation CAR T cells, and was Chairman from 1994 until the company’s merger in 2009 with BioSante Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (now ANI Pharmaceuticals, Inc.). He co-founded and served as Chairman of Abgenix, Inc., an antibody company focused on oncology that was acquired by Amgen Inc. for $2.2 billion in 2006. He co-founded and served as Chairman of Ceregene, Inc., a gene therapy company acquired by Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. in 2013. He served on the Board of Directors of Neon Therapeutics, Inc., an immuno-oncology company developing both personal and shared neoantigen targeted cancer vaccines and T cell modalities, until its merger with BioNTech SE in 2020. Dr. Sherwin currently serves as a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. He also serves as an Advisory Partner at Third Rock Ventures, a leading healthcare venture firm, and as a director of Biogen Inc. and Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. In addition to his corporate experience, Dr. Sherwin has also served on the Board of Directors of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization from 2001 to 2014, serving as Chairman from 2009 to 2011, been on the staff of the National Cancer Institute, and served on the President’s Council of Advisors in Science and Technology Working Group on Drug Development from 2011 to 2013. Dr. Sherwin is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and a volunteer Attending Physician in Hematology-Oncology at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Dr. Sherwin holds a B.A. in Biology, summa cum laude, from Yale University and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology, and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.
Jim Allison, the 2018 Nobel Laureate for Physiology or Medicine, has spent a distinguished career studying the regulation of T cell responses and pioneering new strategies for cancer immunotherapy. Among his most notable discoveries are the determination of the T cell receptor structure and that CD28 is the major costimulatory molecule that allows full activation of naïve T cells and prevents anergy in T cell clones. His lab resolved a major controversy by demonstrating that CTLA-4 inhibits T-cell activation by opposing CD28- mediated costimulation and that blockade of CTLA-4 could enhance T cell responses, leading to tumor rejection in animal models. He proposed that blockade of immune checkpoints such as CTLA-4 might be a powerful strategy for therapy of many cancer types, and conducted preclinical experiments showing its potential. These seminal findings established the field of immune checkpoint blockade therapy for cancer. Work in his lab led to the development of ipilimumab, an antibody to human CTLA-4 and the first immune checkpoint blockade therapy approved by the FDA. Since that time ipilimumab has been approved as part of the therapeutic regimen for metastatic melanoma, renal cell carcinoma, and lung cancer. His current work seeks to improve immune checkpoint blockade therapies currently used by our clinicians and identify new targets to unleash the immune system to eradicate cancer. He is regental professor and chair of the MD Anderson Immunology department, executive director of the Immunotherapy Platform, and director of the James P. Allison Institute. Among many honors, he is a member of the National Academies of Sciences and Medicine. His other recent awards include the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences in 2014, Lasker-Debakey Clinical Medical Research award in 2015, the Balzan Prize in 2017, and the Kovalenko Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, the King Faisal Prize in Medicine, and the BBVA Foundations of Knowledge Prize in 2018.
Dr. Herbst is nationally recognized for his leadership and expertise in lung cancer treatment and research. He is best known for his work in developmental therapeutics and the personalized therapy of non-small cell lung cancer, in particular the process of linking genetic abnormalities of cancer cells to novel therapies. Prior to his appointment at Yale, Dr. Herbst was the Barnhart Distinguished Professor and Chief of the Section of Thoracic Medical Oncology in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (UT-MDACC) in Houston, Texas. He also served as Professor in the Department of Cancer Biology and Co-Director of the Phase I Clinical Trials Program. Dr. Herbst’s primary mission is the enhanced integration of clinical, laboratory, and research programs. He has worked over several decades as a pioneer of personalized medicine and immunotherapy to identify biomarkers and bring novel targeted treatments and immunotherapies to patients, serving as principal investigator for numerous clinical trials testing these agents in advanced stage lung cancers. This work led to the approval of several therapies (such as gefitinib, cetuximab, bevacizumab, axitinib), which have revolutionized the field and greatly enhanced patient survival. He and his Yale colleagues were among the first to describe the PD-1/PD-L1 adaptive immune response in early phase trials and to offer trials of PD-L1 inhibitors atezolizumab and pembrolizumab to lung cancer patients. His leadership in targeted therapeutics resulted in a 2020 ASCO plenary talk and publication of results of the third-generation EGFR-inhibitor osimertinib for the treatment of resected EGFR-mutant NSCLC in the New England Journal of Medicine. In 2015 and again in 2020, his team at Yale was awarded a Lung Cancer SPORE (P50 grant) by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which has identified new immunotherapies and mechanisms of sensitivity and resistance to EGFR targeted therapies. His work has also been funded by ASCO, AACR, the United States Department of Defense, and by a AACR/ Stand Up to Cancer Dream Team grant. His work on “umbrella” trials has galvanized the field of targeted therapy and cancer drug approvals at the FDA. Nationally, he works closely with public-private partnerships to develop large master protocol clinical studies. He was co-leader for the BATTLE-1 clinical trial program, co-leads the subsequent BATTLE-2 clinical trial program. and is principal investigator (PI) of the Lung Master Protocol (Lung-MAP). He testified on this before the House of Representatives 21st Century Cures committee and served as a prominent figure in this area, for nine years as a member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Cancer Policy Forum, for which he organized several meetings focused on policy issues in personalized medicine and tobacco control. He is currently the Vice Chair for Developmental Therapeutics for the Southwestern Oncology Group (SWOG) Lung Committee and PI of the SWOG 0819 trial. After earning a B.S. and M.S. degree from Yale University, Dr. Herbst earned his M.D. at Cornell University Medical College and his Ph.D. in molecular cell biology at The Rockefeller University in New York City, New York. His postgraduate training included an internship and residency in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. His clinical fellowships in medicine and hematology were completed at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, respectively. Subsequently, Dr. Herbst completed a M.S. degree in clinical translational research at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Herbst is a highly respected clinician scientist who has been a champion of translational medicine for decades, recently authoring a high-profile review of the 20-year progress in lung cancer. He has authored or co-authored more than 350 publications, including peer-reviewed journal articles, abstracts, and book chapters. His work has appeared in many prominent journals, such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Work published in Nature was awarded the 2015 Herbert Pardes Clinical Research Excellence Award by the Clinical Research Forum. His abstracts have been presented at the annual meetings of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the World Conference on Lung Cancer, the Society of Nuclear Medicine Conference, and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and a member of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR), where serves as Chair of the AACR Scientific Policy and Government Affairs Committee. He has been a major proponent of efforts to promote tobacco control and regulation (including e-cigarettes), authoring multiple policy statements and leading frequent Capitol Hill briefings. In 2019, he was elected to the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) board of directors. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and an elected member of the Association of American Physicians. He is vice chair of the Southwestern Oncology Group’s (SWOG) Lung Committee. For his lifetime achievement in scientific contributions to thoracic cancer research, Dr. Herbst was awarded the 2016 Paul A. Bunn, Jr. Scientific Award by the IASLC at their 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria. A team of Yale Cancer Center investigators led by Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, was awarded the 2018 Team Science Award from the Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS) for its pioneering work in advancing our understanding of Immunotherapy. In 2020, Dr. Herbst was awarded the AACR Distinguished Public Service Award for Exceptional Leadership in Cancer Science Policy. Dr. Herbst is the recipient of the 2022 Giants of Cancer Care® award for Lung Cancer and was honored by Friends of Cancer Research in 2022 as one of their 25 scientific and advocacy leaders who, through their work and partnership, have been instrumental over the course of the last 25 years in making significant advancements for patients.
Dr. Sharma is an internationally renowned physician scientist at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she serves as a Professor in Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Immunology, Associate VP of Immunobiology, and holds the T.C. and Jeanette D. Hsu Endowed Chair in Cell Biology. She is the inaugural Scientific Director for the Immunotherapy Platform at MD Anderson, overseeing immune monitoring studies for over 100 clinical trials. In 2022, she was appointed the Director of Scientific Programs for the James P. Allison Institute.
Her pioneering work includes leading the first neoadjuvant trial with immune checkpoint therapy. She also identified multiple mechanisms of response and resistance to immune checkpoint therapy. Her work also led to the development of multiple innovative immunotherapy clinical trials, including trials that led to the FDA approval of immune checkpoint agents to treat bladder and renal cell carcinoma. She has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Emil Frei III Award (2016), the Coley Award (2018), and the Randall Prize (2021). Dr. Sharma is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, member of the American Association of Physicians, and fellow of the Academy of the American Association for Cancer Research.
In addition to her research, Dr. Sharma is a dedicated mentor, having guided over 50 students, fellows, and junior faculty since 2005. Dr. Sharma earned her M.D. and Ph.D. in immunology from Pennsylvania State University in 1998, completed her residency at Cornell Medical Center in 2000, and her postdoctoral work plus fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 2004