How immunotherapy became big business

Biotech acolytes surely know the name of Jim Allison, the researcher most publicly associated with cancer immunotherapy drugs. Most also know Tasuku Honjo, with whom Allison shared a Nobel Prize last year.

But fewer know the story of how the drugs that resulted from those scientists’ research managed to make it through the labyrinth of pharmaceutical development. Much of it tracks back to one research executive at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Nils Lonberg, who today is announcing that he is leaving to advise the venture capital firm, Canaan Partners.

Lonberg was previously a top executive at Medarex, which Bristol-Myers bought in 2009. While there, he was instrumental in the decision to start trials for both Opdivo and Yervoy, and one of the key figures in starting this research revolution. STAT’s Matthew Herper follows him from his grad school days to the present in this must-read profile.