Giant of Cancer Care® Eric Winer Elected ASCO President for 2022-2023 Term

Eric P. Winer, MD, FASCO, 2019 OncLive Giants of Cancer Care® recipient in Breast Cancer, has been elected to serve as the president of ASCO for the 2022-2023 term, and will assume the president-elect position during the 2020 ASCO Annual Meeting.¹

Winer currently serves as the chief clinical development officer; senior vice president for medical affairs; chief of the Division of Breast Oncology Center of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers; the Thompson chair in Breast Cancer Research; and an institute physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

“I am deeply honored to be named president-elect of ASCO and serve our members who are committed to improving patient care around the world,” Winer, who is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, stated in a press release. “ASCO is equally devoted to improving outcomes for patient as it is to supporting oncology professionals and enhancing their ability to deliver the best possible care, and I look forward to supporting the ASCO mission in this role.”

Winer is known to have participated in the design and implementation of several clinical trials that have impacted practice and paved the path to more personalized therapeutic approaches in the treatment of patients with breast cancer.²

For example, in 2003, Winer served as the lead investigator on the first clinical trial to report data on preoperative trastuzumab (Herceptin) in combination with paclitaxel in patients with stage II/III HER2-positive breast cancer. Results published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology demonstrated that the preoperative regimen elicited a clinical response of 75% and a complete pathologic response in 18% of 40 patients enrolled to the study.³ These data indicated that the doublet is active against HER2-overexpressing early-stage breast cancer and could be a feasible component of a sequential treatment strategy that includes anthracyclines.

In October 2018, Winer was a co-author on a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine that detailed the pivotal findings from the phase 3 IMpassion130 trial (NCT02425891), which showed that the addition of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) to nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) reduced the risk of progression or death by 40% vs compared with nab-paclitaxel alone in patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) with PD-L1 positivity.⁴ These data supported the 2019 FDA approval of atezolizumab/nab-paclitaxel, which was the first immune agonist for patients with advanced triple-negative disease.

Additional honors comprise the Susan G. Komen Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction (2018), the ASCO Gianni Bonadonna Breast Cancer Award and Lecture (2017), and the William L. McGuire Memorial Lectureship at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Winer has been heavily involved with ASCO throughout his career, having previously served on the ASCO Board of Directors from 2011 to 2015 and as the chair of the ASCO Government Relations Committee, Cancer Communications, Committee, and Health Services Research Committee.

When asked why he wanted to serve as ASCO president, Winer said, “Because I care deeply about providing the best care to patients with cancer, improving that care through research, and supporting oncologists. I believe that ASCO is a key organization in bringing cancer professionals and patients together and improving ‘outcomes’ for both groups.”⁵

He added that his experience has helped him become very familiar with the breadth and depth of ASCO, which has served as a pillar for research, education, and career development in the field of oncology. Winer stated that he wanted to contribute that effort to further the organization’s mission of improving patient care on a global scale.

“I believe that my experience as a clinician, researcher, and leader—building a multidisciplinary breast program at a major cancer center, leading a clinical and translational research program, supporting clinical faculty, contributing to public advocacy groups focused on cancer care, and educating a generation of oncologists—have prepared me well to support the ASCO mission as the organization’s President,” Winer said.

References

1. Eric P. Winer, MD, FASCO, elected ASCO president for 2022-2023 term. News release. ASCO. December 15, 2020. Accessed December 16, 2020. http://bit.ly/389cs9L.
2. Breast cancer: Eric P. Winer, MD. Giants of Cancer Care® website. Accessed December 16, 2020. http://bit.ly/3887Lgl.
3. Burstein HJ, Harris LN, Gelman R, et al. Preoperative therapy with trastuzumab and paclitaxel followed by sequential adjuvant doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide for HER2 overexpressing stage II or III breast cancer: a pilot study. J Clin Oncol. 2003;21(1):46-53. doi:10.1200/JCO.2003.03.124
4. Schmid P, Adams S, Rugo HS, Schneeweiss A, et al. Atezolizumab and nab-paclitaxel in advanced triple-negative breast cancer. N Engl J Med. 2018;379(22):2108-2121. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1809615
5. Eric P. Winer, MD, FASCO. ASCO website. Accessed December 16, 2020. https://bit.ly/3oXZ6DZ.