Jean-Charles Soria, MD, PhD
The Targeted Anticancer Therapies 2018 Honorary Award for cancer drug development has been granted to Jean-Charles Soria, MD, PhD, for his pioneering role in cancer drug development across molecular targeted agents, precision medicine, and immunotherapy. The award was presented during the 2018 International Congress on Targeted Anticancer Therapies in early March in Paris.
The Targeted Anticancer Therapies Honorary Award was established in the early 1990s to acknowledge distinguished cancer drug development experts who have devoted a major part of their careers to the discovery and development of better anticancer medicines.
Contributor to Early Immunotherapy Research
Over the past 15 years, Dr. Soria has pushed forward the molecular enrichment of patient populations in early clinical trials. This has increased response rates and been a key factor in the successful development of a number of drugs, including osimertinib (Tagrisso) for lung cancer. He has launched large precision medicine trials in both early drug development and lung cancer.
In the immunotherapy field, Dr. Soria has contributed to first-in-human trials of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda), which have changed the treatment of cancer. He was deeply committed to obtaining paired tumor biopsies for a better understanding of the mechanism of action of anti–programmed cell death ligand 1 antibodies. Dr. Soria has also promoted awareness of the unique toxicity profile of immunotherapies.
In addition to being Professor of Medicine and Medical Oncology at South-Paris University from 2006 to 2017, Dr. Soria was also the Editor-in-Chief of the European Society for Medical Oncology’s flagship scientific journal, Annals of Oncology, from 2014 to 2017. ■
