Roy Baynes

Roy Baynes is Chief Medical Officer at Eikon Therapeutics, leading all clinical development programs. 

Roy was previously Chief Medical Officer and head of clinical development at Merck, where he supervised the entire clinical portfolio in Merck Research Laboratories and was the architect of the development strategy for dozens of important new medicines including Keytruda®, a drug that has revolutionized cancer treatment globally. Prior to Merck, Roy held clinical development leadership positions for oncology, respiratory and inflammation at Gilead Sciences and hematology/oncology at Amgen. Prior to industry, Roy held academic positions at South African and American Universities in hematology and oncology, in addition to leading the bone marrow transplantation service at the Karmanos Cancer Institute at Wayne State University in Detroit, where he was Professor of Medicine and Oncology, and the Charles Martin Professor of Cancer Research.  

Roy received his degree in medicine and surgery (MB, BCh) from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he also received an MMed (specialist registration) and completed a Ph.D. exploring human iron metabolism. Roy is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the College of Physicians of South Africa.