Sudhir Agrawal

Sudhir Agrawal, D. Phil, FRSC is a founder of Idera Pharmaceuticals. He has served Idera Pharmaceuticals in various roles including Chairman, CEO, President of Research, and Chief Scientific Officer. In May 2017, he retired from Idera to pursue new scientific endeavors. He is currently serving as a member of the Business Advisory Board of The Harvard Medical School Initiative for RNA Medicine and has been appointed Visiting Professor, Deparment of Medicine at The University of Massachusetts Medical School.

He conducted his post-doctoral research at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Medical Research Council, Cambridge, UK, and at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, now merged with The University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, USA.

His research has been focused on the discovery and development of nucleic acid therapeutics. His pioneering publications on antisense technology in the late 1980's led to the establishment of a new drug discovery approach. His focus has been on creating novel antisense structures, which are now widely employed by both academia and industry in generating drug candidates. In collaboration, he has also published on the application of novel antisense design for exon skipping, which in itself has become a novel therapeutic modality.

In the mid 1990's his group observed unintended immune activation with antisense in human clinical trials, which led him to convert this observation into the creation of another new drug discovery platform. The platform involves creating synthetic oligonucleotides based compounds to modulate host immune responses by engaging Toll-like receptors (TLRs). He has led the development of a number of compounds including IMO-2125, an agonist of TLR9, and IMO-3100, IMO-8400, and IMO-9200, antagonists of TLR7 and 9, and advanced them through human clinical proof of concept studies. Currently a Phase II trial of IMO-8400 is ongoing for treatment of dermatomyositis and of IMO-9200 for treatment of IBD.

Over the last five years he has led the development of intra-tumoral therapy of IMO-2125 from preclinical to clinical proof of concept studies. He guided the preclinical studies of IMO-2125 in a number of models of cancer including melanoma, lymphoma, colon, and pancreatic cancers, which provided a clear understanding of the importance of tumor microenvironment for immunotherapy outcomes. Furthermore, he led the studies of intra-tumoral IMO-2125 in combination with anti-CTLA4, anti PD-1, and IDO -1 inhibitors in these models, showing very potent and durable anti-tumor activity. Based on these pre-clinical studies, a Phase I/II clinical trial of intra-tumoral IMO-2125 in combination with Ipilumimab and Pembrolizumab in anti-PD1 refractory melanoma patients is currently in progress. Early clinical data has been presented and shows encouraging responses supported with translational immune markers, and a Phase III trial is ongoing.

He has authored over 300 research papers, reviews, and book chapters, has delivered over 200 invited lectures and presentations, edited three books on oligonucleotides and antisense, and is listed as co-inventor of over 400 patents worldwide.