Jaikrishna Balkissoon
Jaikrishna is vice president of immuno-oncology in global product development and is the visionary behind the creation of the PPD Immuno-oncology Center of Excellence. With more than 27 years’ experience in both clinical practice and clinical research, Jaikrishna is committed to capitalizing on advances in the rapidly changing therapeutic landscape to establish PPD as a world-class partner in advancing immunology-oncology studies. His personal immunology-oncology and cell therapy experience includes treating patients with advanced melanoma, kidney cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma with adoptive cell therapies and vaccines either with or without gene modification. He developed one of the first immunotherapy programs in Northern California for treating advanced melanoma and kidney cancer patients with high-dose IL-2 in addition to providing National Cancer Institute-sponsored clinical trials to patients. At PPD he provides medical, scientific and product development guidance to both external clients and internal PPD clinical operations and business development teams. He also consults on investigational new drug submission and clinical input toward protocol development, including adaptive designs when feasible.
With extensive clinical oncology experience and as a senior executive in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, Jaikrishna joined PPD in 2013 after previously working at Genentech and Oxigene in South San Francisco where he was vice president of clinical research.
Jaikrishna holds a bachelor of science in biology from Beloit College in Wisconsin and a medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C. He completed a surgical oncology and immunotherapy fellowships at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Maryland working with both Dr. Steven Rosenberg and Dr. Suzanne Topalian in the Surgery Branch.