Allen Oliff

Dr. Allen Oliff graduated cum laude from Brandeis University in 1971 and attended the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City until 1974. Thereafter, he completed his training in internal medicine at the Bronx Municipal Hospital Center in New York and obtained fellowship training in medical oncology in the Clinical Oncology Program of the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. In 1985, Dr. Oliff was recruited to the Merck Research Laboratories in Pennsylvania as the Director and Head of Cancer Research. In 1991, he was appointed to the position of Executive Director of Cancer Research at Merck and Co.

Throughout his career Dr. Oliff has pursued investigations into the molecular pathogenesis of cancer. These studies focused on RNA tumor viruses, oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Dr. Oliff has authored over 120 peer reviewed publications in these fields, has been an invited speaker at numerous national and international meetings on these topics and member of multiple related societies and editorial boards. He has received the Louise and Allston Boyer Award for Cancer Research from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a Scholar Award from the Leukemia Society of America. Dr. Oliff has served as a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the NCI and is an adjunct professor of pharmacology at the Thomas Jefferson University College of Medicine.

After serving as Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery at DuPont Pharmaceuticals, in 2001 Dr. Oliff joined GlaxoSmithKline as Senior Vice President and Head of the Center of Excellence for Drug Discovery. In July of 2006, he was appointed head of the newly created Molecular Discovery Research Department at GSK.

In May of 2006, Dr. Oliff established the Virtual Proof of Concept (VPoC) DPU. As head of VPoC, his mission with his team has been to bring novel medicines to C2MD decisions more quickly and at a lower cost.

During his career at GSK, Dr. Oliff has been responsible for the creation of seven marketed products (Tykerb, Votrient, Arranon, Promacta, Altabax, Mekinsit and Tafinlar) and for two other agents currently in late-stage development. These drugs are used in the treatment of various forms of cancer, thrombocytopenia, skin infections and anemia due to renal disease.