Dr. Joseph Elassal serves as the Chief Medical Officer, where he is responsible for the strategy, direction, and execution of the company’s clinical development plans. Prior to joining Ankyra, Dr. Elassal most recently was Sr. Director in Oncology Medical Affairs for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals where he served as the non-melanoma skin cancer lead for cemiplimab. In addition, he has had several other roles at Regeneron in both Clinical Development as well as Medical Affairs in therapeutic areas ranging from Cardiovascular to Rare Disease.
Before joining Regeneron, Dr. Elassal was a Senior Medical Director at Replimune Group working on the early clinical development of their platform of intratumoral oncolytic viral therapies. He also served as Deputy Vice President of Science and Regulatory Advocacy at PhRMA where he was responsible for implementation of the Biosimilars User Fee Act (BsUFA II) and regulatory policy governing cell and gene therapies . Dr. Elassal has been an attending physician at Stamford Hospital in Stamford, CT for over 15 years and received his MBA at Columbia Business School and MD at Eastern Virginia Medical School. He earned his BS in Biology from the College of William and Mary.