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As our consulting Head of Development, Philip Rowlands brings deep experience developing new classes of transformative medicines and technology platforms with a goal of improving outcomes for patients fighting cancer. Phil has spent 32 years in large and mid-size pharmaceutical companies in roles spanning preclinical and clinical R&D. Trained as a pharmacologist, toxicologist and embryologist, his career started in 1988 in developmental toxicology, first at Zeneca/ICI, and then at Sterling Drug in the UK. Through a series of roles of increasing responsibility in preclinical development, based in the UK, Europe, and then the US, he worked at Sterling, Sanofi, GD Searle and Pharmacia. In 2003, following acquisition, he transferred to Pfizer as an exploratory development director and has been focused exclusively on oncology drug development from that time. At Pfizer, Phil led multiple programs spanning small molecule and biologic modalities, and crossing multiple mechanistic classes including anti-angiogenesis, signal transduction, cell cycle inhibition, and immunotherapy. Programs he oversaw through different phases of preclinical and clinical development that ultimately led to new medicines included: bosutinib, crizotinib, dacomitinib, exemestane, inotuzumab, palbociclib, and tremelimumab.

In 2011, Phil moved to Takeda/Millennium, initially, as lead portfolio management and program leadership, and later, among a small management group piloting the first version of a fully integrated Therapeutic Area group comprising program leadership, program and portfolio management, and clinical development into one unit responsible for oncology R&D strategy, oversight of execution against that strategy, and development portfolio goals and budget. From 2015-2020, Phil was Oncology Therapeutic Area Head. In this time, working closely with discovery and commercial partners, he oversaw the critical pivot of the research strategy to development of next generation breakthrough immune-oncology programs, the acquisition of ARIAD, new indication delivery for Adcetris, Ninlaro and Iclusig, new medicines in brigatinib and mobocertinib, regional approvals for cabozantinib and niraparib, and advancement into the clinic of the next wave of immunotherapy approaches including a novel STING agonist, a sumoylation inhibitor, an attenuated cytokine, an armored oncolytic vaccine, and critical partnerships to bring in multiple next generation cell therapy and bispecific platforms. Consistently a champion of the central role of the multifunctional project team as the core of strategic development and execution, Phil also played a key part in generating and leading key initiatives to advance the integration of scientific, medical, commercial and patient inputs into strategic development and the practice of asset strategy.