As Chief Medical Officer of Pfizer, Aida Habtezion leads Pfizer's Worldwide Medical & Safety organization responsible for ensuring that patients, physicians, and regulatory agencies are provided with information on the safe and appropriate use of Pfizer medications. She also leads Pfizer’s Institute of Translational Equitable Medicine (ITEM), an initiative spanning across key research, development, and medical activity dimensions to close gaps in health disparity by leveraging science, data, and translational expertise to integrate equity across Pfizer’s end-to-end development pipeline.
Prior to joining Pfizer, Dr. Habtezion was an endowed and tenured Professor of Medicine, a practicing physician and scientist at Stanford University's School of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. She is board certified in Gastroenterology in both Canada and the United States. She led a large translation research lab funded by multiple NIH, DOD, and foundation grants focused on understanding disease mechanisms and identifying potential immune-based therapeutic targets for pancreatic and intestinal inflammatory diseases and authored over a hundred high impact publications in top peer-reviewed journals. She also served as an Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, a faculty member in Stanford's Immunology Ph.D. program, Neuroscience Institute, Cancer Institute, Maternal & Child Health Research Institute, interdisciplinary biosciences institute Bio-X, and a faculty fellow at Stanford's ChEM-H (Chemistry, Engineering & Medicine for Human Health). Dr. Habtezion served in several national and international study sections, including six years in NIH study section, the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute Research Awards, and the AGA Research Policy Committee. Dr. Habtezion is the recipient of the Robert Wood Johnson Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Award, Gastroenterology & Hepatology Teaching Award, the Immunology Faculty Mentor of the Year, and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation Synergy Award. She is a Fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association, an Allen Distinguished Investigator, an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP). She currently serves in the New York Academy of Sciences Board of Governors, the Executive Board for the International Science Reserve, the Connecticut Business & Industry Association Board of Directors, the Pfizer Foundation Board, the PhRMA Foundation Board of Directors, and is the past president of the American Pancreas Association (APA).
Dr. Habtezion obtained her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of Alberta and Master of Science in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Guelph. She completed her medical degree from McMaster University. Dr. Habtezion completed her Internal Medicine residency from the University of Western Ontario and Gastroenterology & Hepatology clinical fellowship from the University of Toronto in Canada. Following her clinical fellowship training, she obtained postdoctoral research training in Immunology at Stanford University.