Dr. Antoni Ribas, professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and director of the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Tumor Immunology & Immunotherapy Program, has received the 2026 ESMO Lifetime Achievement Award for his pioneering contributions to cancer immunotherapy and translational research. His research has helped transform the treatment of melanoma and advanced the development of immunotherapies and targeted therapies across multiple cancer types.
The prestigious award from the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) recognizes outstanding lifetime achievements in oncology and honors individuals whose research and education have made significant contributions to the field. Ribas will receive the award during the opening session of the ESMO 2026 Congress on October 23.
Ribas’ research has helped transform the treatment of advanced melanoma, once considered one of the deadliest and most difficult-to-treat cancers, and established immunotherapy as a powerful approach to cancer treatment. He is internationally renowned for his work developing immune checkpoint inhibitors and uncovering the mechanisms that determine why tumors respond to or develop resistance to immunotherapy.
His work helped usher in a new era of melanoma treatment with the development of pembrolizumab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor that blocks the PD-1 pathway. In 2014, he and his colleagues demonstrated its effectiveness in patients with advanced melanoma, leading to U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. Pembrolizumab has since become one of the most widely used cancer immunotherapies, with FDA approvals spanning more than 25 cancer indications.
Ribas’ discoveries have also helped advance other important treatments for melanoma, including the anti-CTLA-4 antibody tremelimumab and targeted treatment combinations involving BRAF and MEK inhibitors, such as vemurafenib and cobimetinib and dabrafenib and trametinib.
“I am deeply honored to receive this recognition from ESMO and grateful to the patients, colleagues and trainees who have made these advances possible,” said Ribas. “Cancer immunotherapy has changed what we believe is possible for patients with advanced cancer. When I started treating patients with metastatic melanoma, very few responded to treatment, and the disease was considered almost uniformly fatal. To see patients who once had few options now living for many years is a reminder of how far we have come and how much more there is to accomplish.”
Ribas is also the director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy Center at UCLA and a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research.
