Throughout our 25th anniversary year, we’re featuring champions who’ve been nominated by the childhood cancer community for their outstanding contributions toward our mission of improving the lives of children with cancer and survivors.
Dr. Peter Adamson is an internationally recognized pioneer in pediatric oncology drug development. Among his many career highlights, Dr. Adamson served for nearly a decade as the chair of the Children’s Oncology Group, an international consortium of more than 200 childhood centers with more than 10,000 members.
Dr. Adamson also served on the National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB) and the Blue Ribbon Panel for the Beau Biden National Cancer Moonshot Initiative. Today, he’s senior vice president and global head of Oncology Development & Pediatric Innovation at the pharmaceutical company Sanofi. He’s an emeritus professor of pediatrics and pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.
Dr. Adamson received ASCO’s 2023 Pediatric Oncology Award, recognizing the career and achievements of someone who has contributed outstanding scientific work in pediatric oncology.
“Dr. Adamson made a deliberate effort to reach out and connect with the advocacy community,” said our founder Susan Weiner last year in introducing Dr. Adamson for this honor (see video for full remarks).
“His leadership for children with cancer and tenderness with their families – hundreds and hundreds of patients and families – has had a ripple effect across the country.”
Dr. Adamson's broad experience working with many investigators and industry partners, his own extensive research efforts, and his participation in key scientific committees of the National Cancer Institute give him a unique perspective on the challenges facing the cancer clinical trial system.
“Pediatric oncology, to me, is one of the most rewarding fields because everyone shares the same goals, and you don’t have to explain the mission,” Dr. Adamson said in this ASCO profile.
“When I think of the challenges we face today, we have to make sure the research structures are able to keep up with advances,” he said, when asked about the future of the field. “I want to learn how we can best harness the immune system, to better understand how the immune system of a developing child works, and how we can bring that to bear in improving outcomes. Lessening the toxicity of our therapies must remain on almost an equal plane to improving cure rates. Despite all our success, there is still an incredible amount of work that needs to be done.”