Doriano Fabbro, PhD in Biology, has 30 years of experience in drug discovery in big Pharma (Ciba-Geigy, Novartis) and Biotech (Piqur Therapeutics) following 10 years in academia (PhD at the Biocenter Basel, Switzerland then as Junior Group Leader in the Molecular Tumor-Biology at the Department of Research of the University Basel, Switzerland before joining Ciba-Geigy in 1991).
Until 2005 he was Executive Director for the Oncology Drug Discovery effort at the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR) and member of the NIBR Oncology Advisory Board overseeing significant part of NIBR’s global Oncology Drug Discovery portfolio from target discovery to clinical development. From 2005 to 2012 he was Executive Director of the NIBR Expertise Platform Kinases dedicated to global Kinase Drug Discovery Projects including integrated lead finding (FBS/HTS), profiling (biochemical and cellular), expression and purification, X-ray and NMR, biophysical methods, cell biology, target validation, phospho-proteomic of all indication areas of Novartis (Oncology, Immunology, Inflammation, Respiratory Disease, Muscle, Cardiovascular). From 2012 until 2019 he was CSO of Piqur Therapeutics (Basel Switzerland), a small company devoted to the discovery of PI3K/mTOR inhibitors (PQR309 in Phase-1). Since 2020 he is VP Research at Cellestia Biotech Basel working on Notch inhibitors. He also scientifically advises several pharmaceutical companies in the area of kinase drug discovery.
During his career he contributed to the development of the approved drugs Glivec® (Imatinib, BcrABL inhibitor), Tasigna® (Nilotinib, 2nd gen. BcrAbl inhibitor), Scemblix® (Asciminib or STAMP, 3d gen. BcrAbl inhibitor), Afinitor® (Everolimus, mTOR inhibitor), Rydapt® (Midostaurin, Kit and Flt-3 inhibitor), Piqray® (Alpelisib, PIK3a inhibitor) and many other compounds that are still in in various clinical phases like, Buparlisip (BKM120, PI3K inhibitor), Leniolisib (CDZ173, PIK3Kd inhibitor), Luminespib (hsp90 inhibitor) and CB103 (Notch inhibitor)