Andrea van Elsas, an immuno-oncology expert who directed some of the earliest research on pembrolizumab, has joined the scientific advisory board of InteRNA Technologies BV. The Dutch company has a pipeline of preclinical microRNA drug candidates for cancer. Dr van Elsas currently serves as chief scientific officer of Aduro Biotech Inc, a clinical-stage cancer company. Earlier in his career he worked at Organon (now part of Merck & Co Inc) where he led the anti-PD1 programme that led to the development of pembrolizumab. Dr van Elsas holds a PhD in immunology and oncology from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. During his time as a postdoctoral researcher, he worked in the lab of James Allison, a recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the CTLA-4 checkpoint protein.
InteRNA announced the appointment on 25 March 2019.
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