Andrea Wang-Gillam

Andrea Wang-Gillam, MD, PhD is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Oncology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Co-Leader of the GI Cancer Disease Group at Siteman Cancer Center. She is internationally recognized as a leading clinical investigator in pancreatic cancer, with particular expertise in the development of liposomal irinotecan (nal-IRI, also known as irinotecan liposome injection or ONIVYDE) and the NAPOLI series of clinical trials. Dr. Wang-Gillam was a key collaborator and co-investigator on the NAPOLI-1 trial (published in Lancet 2016), the pivotal phase III study demonstrating that liposomal irinotecan plus 5-FU/leucovorin significantly improved overall survival compared with 5-FU/leucovorin alone in patients with metastatic PDAC who had progressed after gemcitabine-based therapy — establishing nal-IRI/5-FU as the standard-of-care second-line regimen and leading to FDA approval in 2015. She subsequently contributed to the NAPOLI-3 trial, a phase III study evaluating NALIRIFOX (nal-IRI plus oxaliplatin and 5-FU/leucovorin) versus nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine as first-line therapy for metastatic PDAC, which demonstrated improved OS for NALIRIFOX (published NEJM 2023). Dr. Wang-Gillam has also contributed to clinical trial programs targeting the PDAC tumor microenvironment, combination immunotherapy strategies, and novel drug delivery approaches. She has a PhD in chemistry and brings a translational drug chemistry perspective to her clinical research, enabling unique insights into formulation pharmacology. She has authored more than 130 peer-reviewed publications.