Josep Baselga

Josep Baselga i Torres, known in Spanish as José Baselga (3 July 1959 – 21 March 2021), was a Spanish medical oncologist and researcher focused on the development of novel molecular targeted agents, with a special emphasis in breast cancer. Through his career he was associated with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology, and the Massachusetts General Hospital in their hematology and oncology divisions. He led the development of the breast cancer treatment Herceptin, a monoclonal antibody, that targets the HER2 protein, which is impacted in aggressive breast cancers.

He served as Physician-in-Chief at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and was also the president of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Early life Baselga was born on 3 July 1959, in Barcelona in Spain. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1982. He completed a fellowship in Medical Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and subsequently stayed on as a faculty member of its Breast Medicine Service. and a professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in 2013. He held other leadership positions including serving as the president at the American Association for Cancer Research and was the editor of the Cancer Discovery medical journal. His research focus extended to the study of drug resistance in some cancers. He also studied drugs that could target tumors stemming from the PI3K mutation. The incident led to the center announcing a rehaul of their conflict of interest policies. The New York Times also reported that the non-profit hospital paid more than $1.5 million in severance to Baselga in 2018 and 2019. Baselga also resigned from the boards of the drug company Bristol Myers Squibb and the radiation equipment firm Varian Medical Systems. He also resigned from his position as co-editor in chief of the journal Cancer Discovery.

In January 2019, AstraZeneca announced that they had hired Baselga as head of research and development in oncology, where he worked until his death. He was aged 61. Career Development Award, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) (1994–1997) Elected Member, American Society for Clinical Investigation (2004) American Italian Cancer Foundation Prize for Scientific Excellence in Medicine (2007) American Association for Cancer Research–Rosenthal Family Foundation Award (2008) King Jaime I Award in Medical Research, Valencia, Spain (2008) Gold Medal, Queen Sofia Spanish Institute, New York (2010) Joseph B. Martin Award, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts (2012) Elected Member, National Academy of Medicine (2014) John Wayne Clinical Research Lecture Award, Society of Surgical Oncology (2016) XXVIII Catalonia International Prize (2016) European Society for Medical Oncology Lifetime Achievement Award (2017)