Sunil Sharma
Sunil Sharma, M.D., MBA, is HonorHealth Research Institute’s Chief of Translational Research and Drug Discovery, and director of the Research Institute’s Center for Translational Science. At the Center, Dr. Sharma’s multiple teams take basic scientific laboratory discoveries and translate them into new therapeutics for patients.
Dr. Sharma also holds the Virginia G. Piper Distinguished Chair in Innovative Cancer Research, which carries an endowment to help fund Dr. Sharma’s innovative cancer research and clinical trials at HonorHealth Research Institute.
Dr. Sharma’s research and clinical portfolio has expanded beyond his specialty of gastrointestinal cancers (colon, pancreatic) to include drug development — immunotherapeutic treatments in particular — for COVID-19, Alzheimer’s disease, memory performance, and other cancers, including breast and ovarian cancer.
As part of the Institute’s partnership as the primary clinical affiliate with Arizona State University’s John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering, Dr. Sharma also holds a faculty appointment as an ASU Research Professor.
Previously, Dr. Sharma was at the Phoenix-based Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), where he served as Deputy Director of Clinical Sciences, Professor, Head of Applied Cancer Research and Drug Discovery Division, and Physician-In-Chief.
Prior to HonorHealth, Dr. Sharma served as: Deputy Director of Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) in Salt Lake City, a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center; Chief of the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Utah; a physician in the Division of Gastrointestinal Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; and built a clinical trials program at the Nevada Cancer Institute.
Dr. Sharma has been employed by pharmaceutical companies, including: Swiss-based Novartis, where he helped develop ceritinib, one of the most widely used lung cancer treatments; Merck & Co.’s pembrolizumab; and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s nivolumab, the latter two immunotherapy drugs, both of which help the body’s own immune system attack cancer cells. He also has started multiple biotechnology companies, including Iterion Therapeutics, Stingray Therapeutics and Black Canyon Bio.
Dr. Sharma, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, earned his medical degree at the University of Delhi in New Delhi, India, and his MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.