Professor Gilles Vassal

Trained as a Paediatrician, Gilles Vassal is Professor of Oncology at University Paris Saclay and received his PhD in Pharmacology. Former head of Clinical Research, he is currently heading the Paediatric Oncology Research program at Gustave Roussy Comprehensive Cancer Center in France. 

For the last 25 years, Gilles Vassal dedicated his research, clinical and training activities to the development of new drugs for children and adolescents with cancer and to regulatory science. Former president of the EU network for Innovative Therapies for Children and adolescents with Cancer (ITCC), he is currently chair of the ITCC Industry Strategy committee and Board Member of the European Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOP Europe), in charge of the EU Paediatric OncoPolicy agenda. 

He is co-founder and former chair of ACCELERATE (www.accelerate-platform.org) – a multi-stakeholder international initiative to accelerate innovation for children and adolescents with cancer and currently chair of it Scientific Steering committee. Created in 2015, ACCELERATE is a partnership initiative between academia, industry, regulatory agencies (EMA , FDA and other regulatory networks) and patient advocate groups committed to improve and speed up the development of innovative therapies. 

He is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of the non for profit ITCC-P4 gGMBH for preclinical testing in paediatric oncology. He is co-leading the Conect4children IMI2 project workpackage 4 on strategic advice and multistakeholder meetings. He is co-leading the SIOP essential medicines working group. He has authored more than 300 publications.