Alison Schecter, MD, FACC, FCCP

Dr. Alison Schecter, MD, is a physician scientist and world-renowned immunologist/cardiologist. With over 20-year experience, Dr. Schecter is a strategic highly effective operational global executive in biotech and large pharma, most recently as President of R&D of Axcella, a Flagship company.  Dr. Schecter completed her internal medicine training from Johns Hopkins, fellowship training at MGH in Cardiology and continued her vascular biology, immunology, and thrombosis basic science training at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. As an academic physician and NIH funded tenured Associate Professor in Cardiology, and Immunology, Dr. Schecter built and served as co-Director of Mount Sinai’s first Cardiovascular Research Center. After moving into industry, she led Translational Medicine in cardiovascular disease at Novartiswhere her team demonstrated that the NLRP3 signaling pathway, via inhibition of IL-1β, with canakinumab, is a validated target for treating cardiovascular disease. This proof-of-concept trial led to the $1B ph3 CANTOS trial, that she helped design, and the first demonstration that inhibition of inflammation, in the presence of statin treatment, reduces all cause cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. With basic science, regulatory, and clinical development expertise, and as being a seasoned CMO, Dr. Schecter has led multi-functional global teams to effect novel translational and BD approaches to expedite medicines to critical milestones and was instrumental in raising over $250M.  As Head of Early Development for Rare Diseases at Sanofi/Genzyme, Dr. Schecter lead the Niemann-Pick Disease Team to garner the approval by the FDA, EMA, and PMDA and launch of Xempozyme, the 1st treatment for Niemann-Pick Type B and A/B. For this achievement, she and her team were awarded the 2018 Cambridge Chamber of Commerce Visionary Award. Other key milestones for Dr. Schecter include FDA approval for Adynovate, the 1st of the long acting FVIII replacement treatments for Hemophilia A, and garnering a partnership with Sobi, while CMO for Selecta Biosciences, for a novel immunomodulator, Selecta-212, for the treatment of refractory gout.