Synta Pharmaceuticals names new vice president of clinical research

Reporting to Eric Jacobson, senior vice president and chief medical officer, Dr Vukovic will be the Synta medical leader for the company’s most advanced oncology product candidate, elesclomol, and will support the implementation of a broad development strategy for elesclomol.

Dr Vukovic joins Synta from Pfizer where he was global medical leader for Sutent and axitinib in a number of cancer indications. Dr Vukovic was a post-doctoral fellow at Ontario Cancer Institute, Toronto in Ontario and Institute for Cell Biology in Essen, Germany.

Safi Bahcall, president and CEO of Synta, said: “Dr Vukovic has a unique combination of scientific and clinical experience that will benefit Synta. We are excited to have Dr Vukovic join Synta at this critical time, as we prepare for substantial growth in our elesclomol and other cancer programs.”