Ravi Chari

Ravi Chari has over 30 years of experience in the field of Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs). Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale Medical School, he joined the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School in 1986 as a research scientist, where he initiated work on the targeted delivery of cytotoxic drugs to tumor cells. Subsequently he joined ImmunoGen, where he rose to the position of Vice President – Chemistry & Biochemistry. His group designed potent cytotoxic compounds for ADCs, including the maytansinoid class used in the FDA-approved ADC Kadcyla®. His group also developed the IGN and Camptothecin payload classes, and novel linkers for ADCs. Ravi was involved in several aspects of ADC development, including biological evaluation, and scale up and manufacture of payloads and linkers. Ravi is an inventor on 95 issued US patents, including the composition of matter patent for Kadcyla®, and an author on more than 60 peer-reviewed publications. He was appointed a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 2016.