Andrea Van Elsas

Dr. Andrea van Elsas became Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) in September 2017, following his tenure as Chief Scientific Officer of Aduro Biotech Europe since November 2015. He joined Aduro following the 2015 acquisition of BioNovion, a company he co-founded and for which he served as CSO, that was focused on the development of innovative therapeutic antibodies in the field of immuno-oncology. In addition, Dr. van Elsas supports Gilde Healthcare as an Operational Partner in the evaluation of investment opportunities and has been acting as VP of Research for Gilde’s portfolio company, AM Pharma, since 2011. He currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of InteRNA Technologies, a Dutch biotechnology company specializing in the development of RNA therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and the Supervisory Board of DCPrime, a Dutch company developing a class of cancer vaccines to delay or prevent disease recurrence. From 1999 to 2011, Dr. van Elsas held various positions of increasing responsibilities at Organon (acquired by Schering-Plough Corporation and later by Merck) in Oss, The Netherlands, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. As Organon’s Director of Tumor Immunology, he oversaw the immuno-oncology portfolio and led the anti-PD1 program that later became known as pembrolizumab. As a postdoctoral researcher from 1997 – 1999, Dr. van Elsas worked in the lab of Nobel Laureate Jim Allison at the University of California, Berkeley and is a co-inventor on the original anti-CTLA-4 patents that formed the basis for the development of Yervoy®(ipilimumab), the first checkpoint inhibitor approved in 2011 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of melanoma. Dr. van Elsas holds a Ph.D. in Immunology and Oncology from the University of Leiden.