Fawzi Benzaghou

Fawzi Benzaghou, M.D., is a physician-executive and drug developer with more than twenty years in oncology. As Senior Vice President and Global Head of the Oncology Therapeutic Area at Ipsen, he was accountable for more than 20 company-sponsored programs from pre-IND to registration across solid tumors and hematology, and co-chaired joint development and joint steering committees with Ipsen’s oncology partners. His development experience spans a range of targets and modalities, with teams in the United States, Europe and Asia. His record includes nine regulatory approvals with the FDA, EMA and NMPA, among them Onivyde in first-line metastatic pancreatic cancer and Cabometyx across renal, hepatocellular, thyroid and neuroendocrine cancers, together with several IND submissions. He has co-authored publications in The Lancet, The Lancet Oncology and the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and was an active member of working groups at PhRMA and EFPIA.

Fawzi most recently served as Chief Medical Officer of Parabilis Medicines, a Cambridge-based clinical-stage biotech, where he led the build-out of the development organization across translational science, clinical development, clinical operations, biometrics, regulatory, safety and medical affairs. He now advises biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies on oncology development strategy, clinical development plans from IND to registration, health authority interactions and portfolio prioritization, and serves as a senior development advisor to executive committees, boards and life sciences investors.

Fawzi trained as a physician and board-certified surgeon, and practiced as an academic pediatric surgeon in France before moving into drug development. He holds an Executive MBA from ESSEC Business School and completed the General Management Program at Harvard Business School and executive education in artificial intelligence in pharma and biotech at MIT Sloan. He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the International School of Boston and an Advisory Council member of Harvard Business Review.