William C. Sessa

William C. Sessa is currently Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer for the Internal Medicine Research Unit at Pfizer, located in Cambridge, MA. In this role, Dr. Sessa leads the discovery of novel transformative therapies to potentially treat or prevent cardiometabolic diseases, which represent some of the world’s most significant health challenges. He is responsible for guiding the portfolio and technology strategies to bring programs from discovery through to proof of concept in the clinic.

Dr. Sessa joined Pfizer in 2022 after a nearly 30-year career as a research scientist at Yale University, leading an academic laboratory focused on vascular biology. At Yale, he served as the Alfred Gilman Professor and Vice Chairman in the Department of Pharmacology and as Director of the Vascular Biology & Therapeutics Program at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Sessa earned his Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from Philadelphia College of Pharmacy & Sciences; his Master of Science in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Rhode Island; and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from New York Medical College, before completing post-doctoral fellowships at The William Harvey Research Institute and The University of Virginia Health Sciences Center.