Axel Hoos MD, PhD

Dr. Axel Hoos is Senior Vice President, R&D Governance Chair, and Therapeutic Area (TA) Head for Oncology at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (GSK). As governance chair, he oversees technical and funding review committees in R&D. As TA Head he leads discovery and development in Oncology focusing on immuno-oncology, epigenetics, cell therapy, and genetic medicine.

Dr. Hoos returned GSK to Oncology after divestment of marketed medicines to Novartis in 2015 with a new focus on innovation to deliver transformational benefit for patients. Recent acquisitions and business partnerships include Tesoro, Merck-Serono, and Adaptimmune.

Dr. Hoos serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sabin Vaccine Institute (SVI), Director on the Board of Imugene, Co-Director of the Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium (CIC) and Scientific Advisory Board Member of the Cancer Research Institute (CRI).

Previously, Dr. Hoos was the Global Medical Lead in Immunology/Oncology at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) where he developed Yervoy (Ipilimumab), the first checkpoint inhibitor in Immuno-Oncology. For the scientific mechanism of ipilimumab, the Nobel prize for Medicine was awarded to Dr. James Allison in 2018. Before BMS, Dr. Hoos was Senior Director of Clinical Development at Agenus Bio (former Antigenics).

Dr. Hoos holds an MD from Ruprecht-Karls-University and a Ph.D. in molecular oncology from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany. He further trained at the Technical University in Munich and at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He is an alumnus of the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School.