Jean-François Martini's Biography

Jean-François Martini, Sr. Director, Translational Oncology, Immuno-Oncology, Early Development, Pfizer

Jean-Francois Martini has over 18 years of biotech and pharma industry experience in pharmacology and clinical translational sciences, and is author/coauthor of over 30 scientific publications. Prior to joining Pfizer in December 2011, he was Sr. Director, Translational Medicine, at Exelixis, South San Francisco, California, for close to 9 years; there, he contributed to the discovery and approval of cobimetinib (preclinical in vivo pharmacology and clinical PK/PD correlates, partnered with Genentech) and cabozantinib (first approval in MTC) and to projects such as the alliance with Sanofi for the PI3K programs (alliance manager for the clinical collaboration and for the overall Alliance) and the discovery and out-licensing of esaxerenone (mineralocorticoid receptor blocker for hypertension) to Daiichi Sankyo. He completed his postdoctoral training at University of California, San Francisco, where he studied the antiangiogenic properties of fragments of Prolactin and Growth Hormone, after obtaining his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from University of Paris XI, France; he also holds a Master’s degree in Neuroscience from University of Paris VI, France. Since joining Pfizer, he has had increasing responsibilities in the translational oncology group. He currently leads and/or oversees the translational strategy for palbociclib (Ibrance) in Breast Cancer and in other tumors (Lung; Head and Neck; Pancreatic cancer); the Renal Cell Cancer franchise (sunitinib and axitinib) for which he leads the biomarker strategy of the Sutent Adjuvant RCC (S-TRAC); crizotinib (ALK/ROS1/MET inhibitor), and lorlatinib (ALK/ROS1 inhibitor) in Lung Cancer. As such he is directly involved in the submission and regulatory activities for Sutent Adjuvent RCC (leading the FDA approval), and for lorlatinib in ALK-positive NSCLC. He also supports the submission and regulatory activities linked to palbociclib in Breast cancer and crizotinib in ROS1-positive and MET exon 14 skipping Lung cancer. He also leads the cross functional efforts in the area of liquid biopsy/cfDNA analysis. As such he represents Pfizer Oncology in the Blood Profiling Atlas-Cancer (originally part of the White House Cancer Moonshot initiative). In addition, he has been the champion for some strategic partnerships, and development of the next generation of Next Generation Sequencing panels for liquid biopsy, internally and externally. Finally, he is involved with academic and non-profit collaborators, overseeing the translational components of the Pfizer arms in studies such as the Lung-MAP, NCI-MATCH (adult and pediatric studies), and MATRIX-Lung with CR-UK. He has been the Pfizer representative at the directorate of the WIN consortium since 2012 and has supported efforts such as the WINTHER trial, and the initiation of the SPRING trial testing the triple combination of avelumab, palbociclib and axitinib in lung cancer.