Joseph Leveque is a physician-executive who has held senior leadership positions for the past three decades in the biopharmaceutical industry. He is an expert in oncology drug development, focusing on checkpoint inhibition, cytokines, targeted therapy, and translational science. He served as CEO and President of Medikine, where he oversaw the development of next-generation immunomodulatory biologics. He was previously Chief Medical Officer at Mirati Therapeutics, leading the clinical development of KRAS inhibitors, and at Synthorx (acquired by Sanofi), where he led the clinical development of the first synthetic cytokine therapies for cancer immunotherapy. His earlier biopharmaceutical leadership roles include Chief Medical Officer positions at ARMO Biosciences (acquired by Eli Lilly) and EMD Serono the US and Canadian subsidiary of Merck KGaA. He was Vice President and Head of U.S. Medical Oncology at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he was a member of the leadership team that developed and commercialized the groundbreaking immunotherapies nivolumab (Opdivo®) and ipilimumab (Yervoy®). He has also held senior leadership positions at Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Cephalon, and Amgen.

Dr. Leveque holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Mathematics from Santa Clara University, a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, and a Master of Business Administration from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a teaching affiliate of UCLA.