Sunil Sharma, MD, FACP, MBA

Dr. Sharma, Chief Medical Officer at Black Canyon Bio, is a celebrated physician-scientist with over 30 years of experience in translational drug discovery and quickly moving them into the clinic. Dr. Sharma also serves as director of HonorHealth Research Institute’s new Center for Translational Science. Previously, he served as Deputy Director of Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) in Salt Lake City, a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. At Huntsman, he co-led the Experimental Therapeutics Program, where he developed new treatments, including image-guided and targeted drug delivery systems.

He also worked as a physician in the Division of Gastrointestinal Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. And he built a phase I clinical trial program at the Nevada Cancer Institute in Las Vegas.

In addition to his clinical pursuits, Dr. Sharma has worked with a number of pharmaceutical companies, including: Swiss-based Novartis, where he helped develop ceritinib, one of the most widely used lung cancer treatments; Merck & Co.’s pembrolizumab; and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s nivolumab, the latter two immunotherapy drugs, both of which help the body’s own immune system attack cancer cells. He has also started multiple other biotechnology companies, including Iterion Therapeutics and Stingray Therapeutics.

Dr. Sharma, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.