BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH · Dr. Barbara Valsasina

Nerviano Medical Sciences
Italy

Barbara Valsasina is head of the Biotechnology department at Nerviano Medical Sciences (NMS), a pharmaceutical company focused on discovery and development of innovative oncological targeted therapies. She has more than 30 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry. She earned a Degree in Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry summa cum laude from the University of Milan and she started her career working in the biochemical characterization of protein biotherapeutics at Farmitalia Carlo Erba. Later she became a specialist in the protein chemistry, proteomics and biological Mass Spectrometry fields, with a special focus on the characterization of protein post-translational modifications, the identification of biomarkers and the production and characterization of antibody drug conjugates (ADCs). During the years she has been a Project Leader, leading discovery teams working in the oncology field on small molecule targeted inhibitors, in particular kinase inhibitors, from early target identification and validation to drug discovery and early phase clinical studies.
At present she is responsible for antibody conjugation and biochemical characterization within the NMS Antibody Drug Conjugate platform and, in this role, she contributed to the identification of a new highly potent toxin-derivative suitable for conjugation with antibodies to obtain new ADCs. From 2011 onward she was also the director of the protein characterization/biological mass spectrometry lab.
She is co-author of more than 40 peer reviewed scientific publications and several patents. She has presented her work at international meetings and chaired international congress sessions.