Bristol-Myers Squibb Taps Former Delinia CEO to Head R&D Group

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) announced that it has appointed scientific and business thought-leader, Saurabh Saha, M.D., Ph.D., as senior vice president and global head of translational medicine in the company’s R&D organization, effective today.

“Enhancing our translational medicine capability is critical to achieving our mission, and we are excited to add Dr. Saha’s broad leadership experience and deep scientific expertise to our team,” said Tom Lynch, M.D., executive vice president and chief scientific officer of Bristol-Myers Squibb. “Dr. Saha will lead translational research across our therapeutic areas of focus to ensure we have the best understanding of disease and asset-specific biology so we can deliver the right drug to the right patient at the right time.”

Dr. Saha said, “Throughout my career, I have had a passion for developing translational research strategies across disease areas, including oncology and immunology. I look forward to working with Tom and the rest of the R&D organization to advance Bristol-Myers Squibb’s industry-leading pipeline in a way that pushes the boundaries of science and enables us to rapidly deliver innovative medicines to patients with even greater precision.”

Dr. Saha will initially be based at the company’s Waltham, Mass research site until its new state-of-the-art research site in Cambridge, Mass opens in the fourth quarter of 2018.

About Dr. Saurabh Saha

Dr. Saha’s extensive research experience includes leading groundbreaking translational research and implementing innovative drug discovery strategies that have resulted in the discovery and development of two first-in-class cancer therapies and the pioneering of new approaches for unmet medical needs across therapeutic areas and clinical modalities.

Prior to joining Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dr. Saha was a venture partner at Atlas Venture where he held leadership positions with many of its portfolio biotech companies, including as chief medical officer of Synlogic, and as chief executive officer of Delinia until its sale to Celgene in early 2017. In 2008, Dr. Saha established the translational research and development organization BioMed Valley Discoveries where he served as chief scientific officer and later president, and was responsible for leading the development and demonstrating human effectiveness of novel cancer drugs for refractory and resistant disease, including an ERK inhibitor and a bacteriolytic immunotherapy. Earlier in his career, Dr. Saha was a consultant in the pharmaceutical practice at McKinsey and Company and subsequently appointed director and head of the New Indications Discovery Unit at Novartis. Dr. Saha is on the editorial boards of numerous prestigious medical journals and is an associate member and global clinical scholar at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Saha holds an M.D. and Ph.D. in cancer genetics from The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he completed his graduate studies in Bert Vogelstein’s lab. He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and Oxford University, studying general management and biophysics respectively. Dr. Saha completed his undergraduate studies in biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

About Bristol-Myers Squibb

Bristol-Myers Squibb is a global biopharmaceutical company whose mission is to discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases. For more information about Bristol-Myers Squibb, visit us at BMS.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.