Andrew Roberts

Andrew Roberts was first author of the 2016 New England Journal of Medicine report of the first-in-human study of venetoclax in relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, written from the Royal Melbourne Hospital's Department of Clinical Haematology and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute with John Seymour of Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and colleagues at AbbVie and Genentech; 79 percent of 116 patients responded, and the weekly dose ramp-up introduced in that study removed clinical tumour lysis syndrome in the expansion cohort. The Institute's own account traces the drug to its finding in the late 1980s that BCL-2 helps leukaemia cells live, and names Roberts, then its Cancer Theme Leader, at the 2019 announcement that venetoclax would be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Papers in 2026 continue to give the Institute as affiliation.