Highlights from ESMO 2026

Hong Jae Chon, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medical Oncology at CHA University School of Medicine and Director of the Cancer Center at CHA Bundang Medical Center, Republic of Korea.

He is the principal investigator of multiple clinical trials evaluating novel systemic therapies and immunotherapy-based combination strategies for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). He is also actively involved in the early-phase clinical development of novel anticancer agents and international multicenter clinical trials.

His clinical and translational research focuses on cancer immunotherapy, predictive biomarkers, and the tumor microenvironment, with the aim of improving outcomes for patients with HCC. He has authored more than 130 peer-reviewed publications in leading international journals, including The Lancet, Nature Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, JAMA Oncology, Journal of Hepatology, and Hepatology.

He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). He also serves on committees of the International Liver Cancer Association (ILCA) and the Asia-Pacific Primary Liver Cancer Expert Meeting (APPLE) 2027.

Lorenza Rimassa, MD, is Associate Professor of Medical Oncology at Humanitas University and Head of HepatoPancreatoBiliary (HPB) Oncology at IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital in Milan, Italy.

She is Head of External Relations and member of the Executive Committee of the International Liver Cancer Association (ILCA), Chair of the EORTC HPB/NET Tumors Task Force, holds the position of Special Expert - International Trials Europe on the HB Task Force of the NCI (US), member of the Management Committee of the COST Action CA22125 Precision-BTC-Network.

She is an author of the ESMO Guideline on BTC, and of the Italian Inter-Society Guideline on HCC.

She is PI and member of the SC/IDMC for national/international, phase 1–3 clinical/translational trials of new drugs for HPB cancers. She is speaker, chair, discussant, and member of the organizing and scientific committee at national/international congresses.

She has authored more than 200 articles on the development of new GI cancer treatments/biomarkers. She is Co-editor for Journal of Hepatology, Associate Editor for Liver Cancer, Section Editor-in-Chief for the Disease Biomarker Section of Journal of Personalized Medicine, and an editorial board member of several journals including JHEP Reports, Liver International, Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology, and Journal of Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Dr Thomas Newsom-Davis BSc MBBS FRCP, PhD

Tom Newsom-Davis is a consultant thoracic medical oncologist at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, and an Honorary Consultant at the Royal Brompton Hospital, London.  

Dr Newsom-Davis has an active clinical trials portfolio. He has been UK Chief Investigator for a number of studies, as well as chairing Independent Data Monitoring Committees and sitting on trial steering groups. He has published over 70 papers and presented more than 120 abstracts in national and international meetings.

Dr Newsom-Davis joined the steering committee of the British Thoracic Oncology Group (BTOG) in 2017, as was elected Chair in 2025. He serves on the Multidisciplinary Clinical Science Committee of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), on the Oncology Council of the Royal Society of Medicine, and as an invited clinic expert for NICE. Dr Newsom-Davis is past Chair of the RM Partners Cancer Alliance Lung group, and past member of the NCRI Lung Cancer Clinical Studies Group.

He has been an invited lecturer for various organisations including the Royal College of Physicians, European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO), IASLC, British Medical Association and the Association of Cancer Physicians. He has been a faculty member for ESMO and IASLC. His work on Acute Diagnostic Oncology Clinics has previously been awarded a Macmillan Innovation Excellence Award.

Komal Jhaveri, MD, FACP, FASCO is an associate attending physician within the Breast Medicine and Early Drug Development Services at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. She serves as the section head for the Endocrine Therapy Research Program within the Breast Medicine Service.  She is the recipient of the Patricia and James Cayne Chair for junior faculty. She is also an associate professor in the department of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.

She earned her medical degree followed by a training in nuclear medicine from the University of Mumbai. She later completed her Internal Medicine residency from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (Morningside/West) Program in New York and her Medical Oncology/ Hematology fellowship at MSKCC. From July 2012-May 2015, she served as an Assistant Professor in the DOM at New York University and as an Attending Physician at the Langone Medical Center and at Bellevue Hospital.

Her research focuses on the development of improved therapies for patients with breast cancer by conducting novel clinical trials integrated with translational biomarker work through acquired biospecimen (cfDNA and tumor) or imaging analyses. She’s led the development of PI3K/Akt inhibitors, FGFR inhibitors, ERBB2 inhibitors, novel endocrine agents, and antibody-drug conjugates, among others. She serves as a member of the ASCO/TAPUR Molecular Tumor Board and is the Co-Chair for the Endocrine Resistance working group within the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium. Her work has been presented at annual scientific meetings of ASCO, AACR, ESMO, SABCS and has been published widely in many reputable journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Annals of Oncology among others. 

Prof. Roberto Iacovelli studied medicine at the “Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy. At the same University, he specialized in medical oncology and had the PhD in molecular medicine and human pathology with a focus in genitourinary cancers. He had international experience as fellow at Institute Gustave Roussy in France and he served as oncologist in main referral oncological centres in Italy. Currently, he is a medical oncologist at the Fondazione Policlinico Gemelli IRCCS in Rome, Italy. This is one of the major national hospitals with more than 1500 beds and an active Comprehensive Cancer Center.
From December 2022 he is Associate Professor of medical oncology at Sacro Cuore Catholic University of Rome, Italy.
His research activities have a focus on metastatic renal cell carcinoma, prostate and bladder cancer. His major interest is in predictive and prognostic factors in GU cancers as well as the sequence of therapy in renal cancer and the new combination of therapies in GU tumours. He participated as PI or sub-investigator in many sponsored and academic clinical trials and he published more than 150 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and several abstracts at international conferences on these topics. Dr Iacovelli received many national and international awards, such as the ASCO Cancer Foundation Merit Award in 2011 and the best poster award at the ESMO congress in 2012 and is currently a member of the Italian Guidelines in GU tumours.