Before joining Senda, Igor was Chief Medical Officer and Global Head of R&D at Hookipa Pharma, where he led all clinical and pre-clinical development, as well as other strategic corporate initiatives. Prior to Hookipa, he served as Vice President, Global Head Oncology at Daiichi-Sankyo, where he was responsible for drug strategy and development, and before that was Global Head of the Cell/​Gene Therapy Unit at Novartis and Global Clinical Program Head, Oncology Translational Medicine.

Prior to moving into industry, Igor was an attending, professor and member of the Division of Oncology and Cancer Center at Columbia University, where he founded and directed a sarcoma center and ran a laboratory focused on the molecular basis of sarcomas.

Igor earned a BA degree from Columbia College, Columbia University and MD & PhD degrees from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He performed his internal medicine residency at New York Presbyterian Hospital/​Weill Cornell Medical Center and then completed a fellowship in Medical Oncology, as well as a post-doctoral research fellowship in Cancer Biology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

He remains a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medical Oncology at Columbia University, where he continues to assist with patient care and educational activities. Additionally, Igor is currently Chair of Hookipa’s Scientific Advisory Board, member of the Board of Directors at Crescendo Biologics, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Columbia Venture Technology Program and has consulted for several biotechs/​pharmaceutical companies and venture capital groups.