159: Life as a Physician Leader in the Pharmaceutical Industry with Dr. Neil Sankar

“You know, after the drug gets approved, it’s a feather in your cap. You have been part of an NDA, that’s great. Your value goes up. But after that, what do you do?” -Neil Sankar MD, MPH

In this episode, DocWorking Founder and CEO, Dr. Jen Barna welcomes Dr. Neil Sankar. Dr. Sankar is President and Chief Medical Officer of SwanBio, LLC, a business development consultancy firm that facilitates the translation of scientific discoveries into cancer therapeutics. Dr. Sankar has over 16 years of experience in life sciences clinical development, pipeline strategy, clinical safety, and pharmacovigilance. Dr. Sankar shares his wealth of experience in the pharmaceutical industry with the DocWorking audience. He tells us about his journey, his tips for those wanting to get into pharmaceuticals and how he finds time to relax. If you are thinking about getting into the pharmaceutical industry, you will find this episode extremely helpful!  

Neil Sankar received his MD degree from Bangalore University and internal medicine residency from University of West indies, Kingston, Jamaica and trained in the UK and the Caribbeans. He holds a postgraduate degree in public health from Queensland University in Australia.

 

Dr. Sankar got his training in clinical research and tumor biology from NCI Bethesda Maryland and since has held Clinical Development positions within leading Biotech/Pharma including Genentech, Medimmune, Pharmacyclics, FiveprimeTherapeutics, Portola, Loxo Oncology, Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, Elevar Therapeutics, Boston Biomedical, Effector Therapeutics and  Rhizen Pharmaceuticals to name a few.

 

Dr. Sankar is President and Chief Medical Officer of SwanBio, LLC, a business development consultancy firm that facilitates the translation of scientific discoveries into cancer therapeutics. Dr. Sankar has over 16 years of experience in life sciences clinical development, pipeline strategy, clinical safety, and pharmacovigilance. He has extensive experience in the application of US Food and Drug Administration regulations and the Good Clinical Practice guidelines set forth by the International Council on Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use. He has acted as Medical lead in numerous phase I, II and III clinical trials in the therapeutic area of oncology ranging from solid tumors, connective tissue tumors to hematological malignancies including, CLL/SLL, B cell lymphomas, T cell Lymphomas, Acute Myeloid Leukemia and Hodgkins Lymphoma. He is an expert in providing global clinical development and regulatory strategies for therapeutic drugs and was instrumental in filing the New Drug Applications for the antibody-drug conjugate in Metastatic Breast cancer and the Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor in Mantle cell Lymphoma. Dr. Sankar has extensive experience in designing and deploying data capture tools that evaluate the efficacy and safety of clinical trials. He also has extensive experience as a member of drug safety committees and advisory boards of few companies including Leukemia Therapeutics and iNDX Technology. Dr Sankar has led or has been part of FDA/Regulatory Authority discussions for various companies pursuing IND and NDA applications including Pre-IND and Pre-NDA F2F meetings.

 

Dr. Sankar is an active member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the European Hematology Association (EHA , Drug information Association (DIA) , European Society of Clinical Oncology (ESMO), American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), Enterprising Pharmaceutical Professionals from the Indian Sub-Continent (EPPIC GLOBAL), Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS), IACA and TiE Silicon Valley.

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Podcast produced by: Amanda Taran