Puma Biotechnology

Alessandra Cesano, M.D., Ph.D.
Director

Alessandra Cesano, M.D., Ph.D. was appointed as a director of Puma Biotechnology, effective July 29, 2022. Dr. Cesano has been the Chief Medical Officer of ESSA Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company developing therapies for the treatment of prostate cancer, since July 2019.

From July 2015 until June 2019 Dr. Cesano was the Chief Medical Officer of NanoString Inc., a biotechnology company that develops translational research tools, where she focused on the development of translational and diagnostic multi-plexed assays for the characterization and measurement of mechanisms of immune response/resistance. Prior to NanoString, Dr. Cesano was Chief Medical Officer at Cleave Biosciences, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focusing on protein therapies for the treatment of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, and before that she served as Chief Medical Officer and Chief Operations Officer at Nodality, Inc., where she built and led the Research & Development group, while providing the overall clinical vision for the organization. Between 1998 and 2008, Dr. Cesano held various management positions at Amgen Inc., Biogen Inc. (formerly Biogen Idec) and SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals, where she helped to advance various oncology drugs through late stage development and FDA approvals.

Early in her professional career, she spent 12 years conducting research in tumor immunology, including nine years at the Wistar Institute, an NCI Basic Cancer Center connected with the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Cesano also holds membership in several professional and scientific societies including ASCO, ESMO, ASH, EHA, AACR and the Society of Immunotherapy of Cancer ("SITC"). In the latter she has served as co-chair in the SITC Industry Committee and of the SITC Biomarker Working Group, and she currently serves as Associate Editor for the Biomarker section of the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, co-chair of the Regulatory Committee, and as the elected At-Large Director of the SITC for the 2020-2023 term. Over her career, she has been an author on over 130 publications.

Dr. Cesano received an M.D. summa cum laude, a Board Certification in Oncology and a Ph.D. in Tumor Immunology from the University of Turin. Dr. Cesano was selected as a director because of her extensive background in biotechnology research and development and her experience in the life sciences industry.