As Chief Medical Adviser, Dr. Leffell works with the Xequel Bio team on clinical trial design, development, and execution, along with the clinical elements of strategic commercial planning. Dr. Leffell brings an unmatched depth of experience to the Xequel Bio team with over 40 years of experience in clinical practice, academia, and industry. This experience helps Dr. Leffell to provide a calm, intelligent, and informed perspective to Xequel’s scientific focus and clinical development programs.
Dr. Leffell’s clinical focus is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer and new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies in skin health. He holds a patent for a laser device to measure skin aging and shares a patent for the discovery of the skin cancer gene, PTCH. He also invented a novel surgical therapy for treating vitiligo, a depigmenting condition of the skin.
Dr. Leffell, born and raised in Montreal, received his BS, cum laude from Yale College. He graduated with MD, CM from McGill University Faculty of Medicine in Montreal. Board certified in medicine and dermatology, he completed residencies at Cornell Cooperating Hospitals (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and North Shore Hospital) and Yale-New Haven Hospital. At Yale, he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship as a National Institutes of Health research fellow. Following his residencies, he completed a clinical fellowship in advanced dermatologic surgery at the University of Michigan before returning to Yale in 1988 to found a new program in skin cancer and melanoma. The program, which combines patient-centered clinical care with teaching and research, has trained over 140 residents and 27 fellows in advanced dermatologic surgery and skin oncology.
Dr. Leffell values Xequel’s business environment because of the unparalleled expertise in science and business – a committed team of scientists coupled with a best in class executive team. Xequel’s novel therapeutic agent has many potential applications, and developing those from bench to market is a wonderful challenge for him. When not working, Dr. Leffell and his wife spend time in the Berkshires, where he can be found honing his craft of woodworking and leather working, or exploring the forest with his dog Lenny, a Hungarian herding dog.