Dr. Axel Hoos is a physician-scientist, biopharma leader and entrepreneur with broad experience in drug development and building life science organizations.
Most recently he served as CEO of Scorpion Therapeutics, a next-generation biotechnology company focusing on Precision Oncology 2.0 for optimally designed small molecule cancer medicines. Scorpion was acquired by Eli Lilly for $2.5B for the best-in-class clinical profile of its mutPI3Ka program. Dr. Hoos led the growth of Scorpion to a team of 120, shaping its culture, pipeline, multi-technology platform, business development and fundraising strategy. He oversaw the delivery of 3 bestin-class programs targeting mutated PI3Ka, EGFR Exon20, and EGFR C797S in 3 years, creation of business partnerships with AstraZeneca and Pierre Fabre and transitioned the company from early discovery to a clinical-stage organization.
Previously, Dr. Hoos served as Senior Vice President, R&D Governance Chair, and Therapeutic Area (TA) Head for Oncology at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (GSK). In this role he oversaw funding and technical review committees and was responsible for the Oncology business across Discovery and Development including the focus areas of immuno-oncology, cell & gene therapy, epigenetics, synthetic lethality, and tumor-cell targeting. He returned GSK to Oncology after the divestment of its marketed cancer medicines to Novartis in 2015 and oversaw the re-built of its Oncology Division from an early discovery effort to a fully-integrated organization. Approvals include BLENREP® (belantamab mafodotin), first-in-class BCMA-targeting agent for multiple myeloma, ZEJULA® (niraparib), best-in-class PARP inhibitor for ovarian cancer, and JEMPERLI® (dostarlimab), PD-1 inhibitor for endometrial and rectal cancer. Business development portfolio expansions included the acquisition of Tesaro, a codevelopment partnership with Merck-Serono, cell therapy partnerships with Adaptimmune, Lyell and Immatics, a collaboration with IDEAYA in synthetic lethality, the in-license of PVRIG from Surface Oncology, or the codevelopment partnership on TIGIT with iTEOS, among others.
Dr. Hoos’ efforts focus on advancement of medicine and science into new territories, transformational therapies for life-threatening diseases, and business and scientific partnerships. Toward these goals, Dr. Hoos also served as Executive Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sabin Vaccine Institute (SVI), a Global Health organization, where he oversaw its organizational re-structuring and renewal of R&D strategy. Further he was Co-founder and Director on the Board of Imugene, an Australian biotech company, Director on the Boards of TCR2, a cell therapy company, and NextPoint Therapeutics, an Immuno-Oncology company, Co-Director of the Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium (CIC), Scientific Advisory Board Member of the Cancer Research Institute (CRI), and Co-Founder and Executive Committee member of the PACT initiative of the Biden Cancer Moonshot.
Prior to GSK, Dr. Hoos was the Global Medical Lead in Immunology/Oncology at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) where he and his team developed YERVOY® (Ipilimumab), the first immune checkpoint inhibitor drug, and created the term Immuno-Oncology to characterize the interplay of the immune system and cancer in immunotherapy drug development. He spearheaded the creation of a new immunotherapy drug development paradigm, which helped launch the field of Immuno-Oncology (Nat. Rev. Drug Discovery 2016, 15(4): 235-47). The discovery of ipilimumab’s scientific mechanism was honored with the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine to Dr. James Allison in 2018.
Before BMS, Dr. Hoos was Senior Director of Clinical Development at Agenus Bio (previously Antigenics), a biotech company focused on Immuno-Oncology.
Dr. Hoos holds an MD from Ruprecht-Karls-University and a PhD in molecular oncology from the laboratory of Prof. Harald zur Hausen (Nobel Laureate in Medicine for the role of HPV in cancer) at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) both in Heidelberg, Germany. He trained in surgery at the Technical University in Munich and further in surgery, molecular pathology and tumor immunology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City. He is an alumnus of the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School (HBS).