AZBio Board of Directors

Kiran Avancha, Ph.D., R.Ph, CCRP

Chief Innovation Officer, HonorHealth

Co-Founder, PriZm Therapeutics

 

 

 
Kiran Avancha, Ph.D., R.Ph, CCRP was elected to the AZBio Board of Directors in April of 2017.

Dr. Avancha is Chief Innovation Officer at HonorHealth  where he is responsible for generating deal flow, investment thesis and innovation strategies.  His work includes building strategic collaborations, partnerships, and running due diligence, and investment process across new and emerging modalities in therapeutics, devices, digital health, and healthcare solutions as well as establishing and leading 
HonorHealth Innovations (H2I) as a needs-based enterprise wide business unit in health-system.

He is also a Co-Founder at PriZm Therapeutics,  a late-stage clinical biotech company with a focus on rare pediatric orphan diseases.

Dr. Avancha was named Chief Innovation Officer of HonorHealth in June 2021. He previously served as Chief Operating Officer at HonorHealth Research Institute (HRI) beginning in  October 2015. In his role at HRI, he oversaw all the operations and personnel of research programs, growth strategy and sustainability. Prior to taking this role at HRI, he was the founding director of the Cancer Clinical Research Office at Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute. He led the integration of cancer clinical research across five community hospitals and six-private practices of Hartford Healthcare, the largest health-system in the state of Connecticut. He was involved in the development of a unique model for clinical research alliance between Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute (HHCCI) and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) that resulted in bringing cutting edge research to patients in local communities.

Dr Avancha also served as an administrative lead and clinical research pharmacist at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. He established a model for Investigational Drug Services (IDS) that collaborated with Phase-I Drug Development Program at University of Miami Health System on novel molecules. He oversaw over 200 drug clinical trials for the IDS program of Univ of Miami at multiple sites across South Florida. He was on University of Miami’s Institutional Review Board, Sylvester Cancer Center’s Data & Safety Monitoring Board and Protocol Review Committee as an advocate for patient safety and analyze risk vs benefit for patients on clinical trials.   

Dr Avancha received his Bachelor’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. He conducted his Doctoral studies in medicinal chemistry, drug discovery at University of South Florida, Tampa in collaboration with Moffitt Cancer Center on peptidomimetics, high-throughput screening of novel molecules for multiple myeloma. His research interests include drug design, drug development, and cost-benefit studies of new drugs in cancer. He believes in operational excellence through lean methodologies.

Dr Avancha co-founded ClinSync Clinical Research in 2010. ClinSync is oncology based clinical trials facility that serves underprivileged cancer patients in South Indian states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. He is on the Boards of ClinSync Clinical Research and Grace Cancer Foundation. He lives in Chandler, AZ with his wife and a son.