Dr. Saurabh Saha is Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Centessa Pharmaceuticals. Most recently, as Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Bristol Myers Squibb Company, Saurabh led translational medicine across all therapeutic areas spanning discovery, early development through late development, and commercialization. In 2019, he led the Research and Development diligence in the acquisition of Celgene by BMS and subsequently managed key aspects of the integration across both organizations. During his tenure, Saurabh laid the foundation for the BMS Research and Development headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA serving as site head and establishing a research focus on discovering new cancer treatments for immunotherapy resistance.
Previously, Saurabh was a venture partner at Atlas Venture where he held leadership positions with several portfolio biotech companies, including Chief Medical Officer of Synlogic and Chief Executive Officer of Delinia until its sale to Celgene in early 2017.
In 2008, he established the translational research and development organization at BioMed Valley Discoveries, where he served as Chief Scientific Officer and later President and was responsible for leading the development and demonstrating human effectiveness of 2 first-in-class cancer therapies.
Earlier in his career, Saurabh was a management consultant in the pharmaceutical practice at McKinsey & Company and subsequently was appointed Director and Head of the New Indications Discovery Unit at Novartis. He is on the editorial boards of several medical journals and is an Associate Member and Global Clinical scholar at Harvard Medical School. Saurabh currently serves on the board of directors of Scorpion Therapeutics and Clarivate (NYSE: CLVT).
Saurabh holds MD and PhD degrees in cancer genetics from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he completed his graduate studies in Bert Vogelstein’s lab. He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and Oxford University, where he studied general management and biophysics, respectively. Saurabh received a BSc degree in biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Saurabh has also published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and patents (issued and pending).
