Title: President, Chief Executive Officer and Board Director
Company: Candel Therapeutics
Location: Needham Heights, Massachusetts, United States
Paul-Peter Tak, MD, PhD, President, Chief Executive Officer and Board Director at Candel Therapeutics, has been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who Top Doctors for dedication, achievements, and leadership in Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Tak has established himself as a leading figure in medicine and research as the president, chief executive officer and board director of Candel Therapeutics in Needham, Massachusetts, since 2020. Over the past five years, he led the company through a successful public offering on Nasdaq in 2021, navigating the process remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. His tenure has been marked by the introduction of a new executive and leadership team, prioritization of the company’s portfolio and the establishment of a high-profile research advisory board that includes a Nobel Prize laureate. Dr. Tak’s strategic vision included licensing programs from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and integrating intellectual property from other companies, which helped shape Candel Therapeutics into its current form.
Under Dr. Tak’s guidance, Candel Therapeutics has achieved significant clinical milestones, particularly in developing therapies for challenging solid tumors, such as prostate, pancreatic, lung and brain cancers. The company reached a significant breakthrough in a large Phase 3 clinical trial for newly diagnosed localized prostate cancer, meeting both primary and secondary endpoints. Additional research has demonstrated promising outcomes for patients with advanced lung cancer and pancreatic cancer, as well as strong effects against glioblastoma, published in Science Translational Medicine. These advances underscore Dr. Tak’s commitment to improving patient outcomes and advancing innovative therapies toward regulatory approval worldwide.
Before his role at Candel Therapeutics, Dr. Tak served as a venture partner and chief executive officer at Flagship Pioneering Inc., the ecosystem that created Moderna. During his tenure from 2018 to 2020, he also led Kintai Therapeutics (now Sail Biomedicines) as the president and chief executive officer and served on the board of directors at Omega Therapeutics. Dr. Tak’s work at Flagship Pioneering was characterized by cross-continental collaboration between the U.K. and the U.S.
Between 2016 and 2018, Dr. Tak held senior leadership roles at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), including senior vice president of research and development, chief immunology officer and global development leader. He also served as the president and chief executive officer of Tempero Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a GSK majority-owned biotechnology company that he successfully integrated into GSK.
Dr. Tak’s earlier career included directorships at Galvani Bioelectronics, a joint venture between GSK and Verily focused on bioelectronic technologies, and ViiV Healthcare Group of Companies. He also chaired the research directors’ group at the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations from 2013 to 2015.
In academia, Dr. Tak first taught as a clinical associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, from 1999 to 2004 and as a professor of medicine at the Academic Medical Center (now Amsterdam University Medical Center), University of Amsterdam, from 1999 to 2020, where he also chaired the division of clinical immunology and rheumatology until 2011. While teaching in Amsterdam, Dr. Tak also founded Arthrogen in 2005 to develop gene therapy innovations. His academic appointments also included serving as an honorary professor of rheumatology at Ghent University from 2014 to 2020. Dr. Tak’s early professional journey began with co-founding MediPartners in Leiden, the Netherlands, in 1991.
Beyond his primary work, Dr. Tak serves as an advisor to SecondWave Systems Inc. and the Novo Nordisk Innovation Hub at Novo Nordisk A/S. He currently chairs the board of directors at Citryll, chairs the Multimorbidity Clusters Programmes Steering Group for MRC, ESR and NIHR, and serves on the boards of Sitryx and Levicept Ltd.
Dr. Tak’s educational background began with a VWO diploma, with honors, from Comenius College in 1979, followed by a Doctor of Medicine, with honors, from Amsterdam University Medical Center in 1986. He then completed a residency in internal medicine at Bronovo Hospital in 1990, followed by an internship qualification from Leiden University in 1993. From there, Dr. Tak earned a Doctor of Philosophy in immunology from Leiden University in 1996 before ultimately receiving a specialization in rheumatology from Leiden University in 1999.
Dr. Tak’s extensive academic background has provided him with deep clinical insights that have informed his approach to scientific rigor, decision-making and organizational leadership throughout his career. Early collaborations with Leiden University Medical Center’s rheumatology department enabled him to become a world expert on inflamed tissues in joint diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and osteoarthritis. This expertise propelled Dr. Tak into translational science, bridging clinical practice and research innovation.
Active professionally, Dr. Tak co-founded the Association of Independent Institutes for Industrial Medicine, has been affiliated with organizations like the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American College of Rheumatology, and has been recognized as an honorary member of the European League Against Rheumatism. He is also an elected fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in the U.K.
Heavily engaged in community and civic endeavors, Dr. Tak has served on the board of trustees of The Lorna and Yuti Chernajovsky Biomedical Research Foundation since 2019 and as a trustee of The Kennedy Trust for Rheumatology Research since 2024. He also chairs the steering groups for various multimorbidity cluster programs and other committees and boards, such as Heliomare.
A prolific author, Dr. Tak has published more than 600 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, with approximately 100,000 citations and an h-index of 153, demonstrating sustained impact in his field. He has also contributed his expertise through podcasts, articles, LinkedIn contributions and other media engagements. In 2017, Dr. Tak was notably featured in an article by Bioelectronics in Medicine with the title ‘Interview with Paul-Peter Tak: Stimulating the Vagus Nerve to Treat Rheumatoid Arthritis.’
Dr. Tak is widely recognized for his contributions to science and medicine. In 2010, he was recognized by his peers as the Best Rheumatologist in the Netherlands for his clinical work. He soon received a Medal of Honor from the Dutch Society for Rheumatology in 2011. Moreover, he has been named to various listings, including The Medicine Maker’s Top 100 Power List and PharmaVoice’s Top 100. In 2024, he was ranked No. 123 globally among immunologists in the Research.com rankings. Eager for future success, Dr. Tak is dedicated to ensuring that innovative therapies developed under his leadership reach patients globally, maximizing their benefit while making a meaningful difference in patients’ lives, a goal that continues to drive his work today.
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