INTRODUCTION

Robert Ilaria Jr. is a seasoned oncology drug development leader with clinical development experience spanning over 35 compounds across multiple modalities, from small molecules to biologics.

Dr. Ilaria has held a variety of senior leadership positions in early and late phase oncology drug development in both large Pharma and small Biotech companies. At BMS, he served as CTLA-4 Development Program Leader. He was previously Executive Medical Director, Global Clinical Research and Development at Celgene and Program Lead Physician for the PD-1 inhibitor tislelizumab partnership with BeiGene. During 12 years at Eli Lilly and Company, he progressed through increasingly senior leadership roles in the global clinical development of over 20 drug candidates, resulting in Fast Track, Breakthrough Designation, and accelerated approval. He also provided medical support for global regulatory submissions and launch and post-launch activities.

For the last several years, Dr. Ilaria has served as Chief Medical Officer for several Biotech companies, and has provided strategic advice for multiple companies developing novel pipeline and platform oncology assets, including immunotherapies.

Dr. Ilaria was a bench researcher at Harvard Medical School and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center studying cell signaling in hematological malignancies and developing translational mouse models of pediatric malignancies. His clinical focus was bone marrow transplantation and soft tissue sarcoma.  He received his MD degree at UT Southwestern Medical School and completed his medical house-staff training and hematology-oncology fellowship at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana-Faber Cancer Institute. Dr. Ilaria has remained clinically active throughout his pharmaceutical career as a volunteer attending staff physician at outpatient oncology clinics at the Indianapolis VA hospital/ IU School of Medicine and Bellevue hospital/NYU.