Cristian Massacesi

Chief Medical Officer and Chief Development Officer Oncology, AstraZeneca

Cristian Massacesi, M.D. is a trained medical oncologist with 20+ years of drug development experience at the world’s top pharmaceutical companies.

As AstraZeneca’s and Alexion’s Chief Medical Officer, Cristian ensures patients, physicians, and regulatory agencies are provided with the safe and appropriate use of our medicines. In this capacity, he also leads a team of ~500 employees across patient safety, quality assurance, and clinical excellence for the entire product portfolio – from investigational through marketed drugs.

As AstraZeneca’s Oncology Chief Development Officer, he leads AstraZeneca’s late-stage Oncology portfolio of 13 innovative medicines and immunotherapies. In this role, Cristian oversees ~150 clinical studies spanning multiple indications, focused in AstraZeneca’s core disease areas: breast, lung, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, and gynecological cancers. This team of ~1,100 employees around the world leads the clinical design, development and execution of AstraZeneca’s pivotal oncology studies.

Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Cristian worked in senior industry roles at Pfizer and Novartis. This experience included several worldwide regulatory submissions and approvals across oncology indications.

Cristian gained his medical degree from the Marche Polytechnic University in Italy and completed Medical Oncology training at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London; the Kaplan Comprehensive Cancer Center, New York; and the European Institute of Oncology, Milan. He has broad patient care and clinical research experience and has authored / co-authored 50 extended peer-reviewed publications and has also been recognized with numerous honors and awards during his career.