James A. Bianco, M.D., is the principal founder of Cell Therapeutics, Inc. and has been the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer and Director since February 1992. Dr. Bianco has been responsible for securing nearly $1 billion in operating capital. He was the chief architect of the company’s portfolio strategy leading to the acquisition of its PG drug delivery technology in 1998, TRISENOX® in 2000, Novuspharma’s pixantrone in 2003, worldwide license and co-development agreement for development and commercialization of OPAXIO (formerly known as XYOTAX)™ with Novartis in 2006, and the acquisitions of Systems Medicine and worldwide rights to brostallicin in 2007. He brought CTI back into the commercial arena in late 2007 with the acquisition of Zevalin®, approved by the FDA in February 2002 as the first radioimmunotherapeutic agent for the treatment of NHL.

Prior to joining CTI, Dr. Bianco was an Assistant Member in the clinical research division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington. From 1990 to 1992, Dr. Bianco was the director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Seattle. He received his B.S. in Biology and Physics from New York University and his M.D. from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

Dr. Bianco received the 2005 Corporate Visionary Award from Gilda’s Club Seattle, an organization where people with cancer and their families can receive emotional and social support. “Dr. Bianco has made it his life’s mission to make cancer more treatable by pursuing less toxic, more effective chemotherapy drugs,” said Anna Gottlieb, founder and executive director of Gilda’s Club Seattle. “He also understands that people living with cancer need more than medicine. His support of Gilda’s Club Seattle is actually helping to make cancer more livable.”

In a region that boasts some of this nation's leading companies, James A. Bianco, M.D., president and CEO of CTI was named CEO of the Year for 2000 by Washington CEO magazine.

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Posted May 13, 2008

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