Andrea van Elsas
PhD
VP Research
Andrea van Elsas is responsible for research including discovery alliances with biotech and academia.
In addition to AM-Pharma, Andrea is Chief Scientific Officer of Aduro Biotech, Inc. Prior to its acquisition by Aduro in 2015, he co-founded BioNovion focused on the development of therapeutic antibodies in the field of immune oncology.
Andrea obtained his PhD at Leiden University in 1996 and subsequently worked as a postdoc at UC Berkeley in the lab of Nobel laureate Jim Allison on the application and mode-of-action of anti-CTLA-4 to treat cancer.
From 1999 to 2011, he held various positions at Organon in Oss, the Netherlands, and Cambridge, Massachusetts (acquired by Schering-Plough Corporation in 2007 and later by Merck & Co.). As Director of Tumor Immunology, he ran the immune oncology portfolio and led the anti-PD1 program that later became known as pembrolizumab.
