Jean-Charles Soria to Receive TAT 2018 Honorary Award for Cancer Drug Development

Jean-Charles Soria, MD, PhD

Jean-Charles Soria, MD, PhD

Jean-Charles Soria, MD, PhD, will be honored with the Targeted Anticancer Therapies (TAT) 2018 Honorary Award for cancer drug development. Soria has played a large part in cancer drug development across molecular targeted agents, precision medicine, and immunotherapy for the last 15 years.

The TAT Honorary Award has acknowledged distinguished cancer drug development experts since the early 1990’s. This year’s award will be presented in Paris, France during the International Congress on TAT, to be held March 5 to 7.

Soria is senior vice president and head of the Oncology Innovative Medicines Unit at MedImmune. He was previously a professor of Medicine and Medical Oncology at South-Paris University.

With over 15 years of work in the field, Soria has pushed boundaries in molecular enrichment in early clinical trials, increased response rates, and played an important role in the successful development of a number of drugs, including osimertinib (Tagrisso) for lung cancer.

His contributions to first-in-human trials, including atezolizumab (Tecentriq) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda), have changed the treatment of cancer. He remains committed to creating a better understanding of the actions of anti-PD(L)1 antibodies by obtaining paired tumor biopsies. He also created awareness of late side effects arising with unique immunotherapies.

“This is a strong recognition of a 15-year expanse in my career focusing on bringing new medicines to clinical practice for the benefit of cancer patients,” Soria said in a statement from ESMO announcing the award. “It is emotionally an important award to me because early drug development is an area with few accolades. And therefore, to receive the TAT 2018 Honorary Award, reflects a stringent selection process.”

Soria plans to use his TAT 2018 Honorary Award Keynote Address to outline how the drug development paradigm has changed in the past decade. The focus of early drug development is now on activity and biomarkers of response, rather than only the safety and toxicity, ultimately benefitting cancer patients.

“This new paradigm creates a number of opportunities and challenges. Optimizing drug development for immunotherapies, targeted agents, and modern chemotherapies is key, especially when accounting for the clear need to combine them for cancer control,” Soria said.

Soria has published over 340 peer-reviewed publications. As editor-in-chief of ESMO’s scientific journalAnnals of Oncologyfrom 2014 to 2017, Soria made a commitment to educating doctors with new cancer treatment discoveries.

Soria trained as a medical oncologist, obtaining the Silver medal from Paris Medical School in 1997. He also received his PhD degree in the fundamental basis of oncogenesis in 2001 with a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.