Josep M. Llovet

Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer

Life & Medical Sciences

Josep M. Llovet, MD is ICREA Research Professor, Liver Cancer Translational Oncology Lab, Liver Unit, IDIBAPS, Hospital Clinic, Univ. Barcelona, Prof.of Medicine and Director of the Liver Cancer Program at Icahn Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NY. He has published 278 manuscripts in Liver Cancer, including NEJM, Lancet, Nature, Nat.Genet., Cancer Cell and Gastroenterology (IF:3620;citations:58971;h-index:100). Top 1% most cited researcher globally, Clarivate Analytics (2014-2018), Educational Councilor (2013-15), President of ILCA (2011-13), Senior Editor of CCR, he has lectured in more than 500 international meetings and has been the PI of European grants FP7-HEPTROMIC,HEP-CAR, Accelerator Award, NIH-NIDDK R01-award, I+D grants and competitive private grants. His achievements are: 1.Establish a clinical and molecular classification for HCC. 2. Establish efficacy of chemoembolization and sorafenib for HCC.3.Identification of novel drivers and oncogenic pathways in HCC and ICC.


Research interests

Prof Josep M. Llovet has been working in clinical and translational research in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) for the last 24 years .He is leading international randomized trials in HCC on novel targeted therapies and developing a molecular classification of the disease,understanding the genetic aberrations and signaling pathways involved and in the identification of new molecular targeted therapies. He has organized the HCC Genomic Consortium and the HEPTROMIC Consortium  that includes several international HCC research centers: IDIBAPS-Hospital Clínic, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, INSERM, Univ. Tuebingen, Dana-Farber-MIT-Broad Institute and NCI.The main future areas of interest are a) identify biomarkers predicting response to sorafenib and checkpoint inhibitors (nivolumab) or mechanisms of resistance b) translate oncogenic drivers discoveries as targeted therapies in HCC and ICC, c) unraveling the molecular traits of NASH-HCC

Selected publications

– Galle PR, Forner A, Llovet JM et al. 2018, ‘EASL Clinical Practice Guidelines: Management of hepatocellular carcinoma. European Association for the Study of the Liver’. J Hepatol. 69:182-236

– Vogel A, Cervantes A, Chau I et al. 2018, ‘Hepatocellular carcinoma: ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up’, Annals of Oncology, 29,238-255.

– Lim HY, Merle P, Weiss KH, et al. 2018, ‘Phase II studies with refametinib or refametinib plus sorafenib in patients with RAS-mutated hepatocellular carcinoma’. CCR, 24:4650-4661

– Labgaa I, Villacorta-Martin C, D’Avola D et al. 2018, ‘A pilot study of ultra-deep targeted sequencing of plasma DNA identifies driver mutations in hepatocellular carcinoma‘, Oncogene, 37:3740-3752

– Bruix J, Cheng AL, Meinhardt G et al. 2018 ‘Prognostic factors and predictors of sorafenib benefit in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma: Analysis of two phase III studies’, J Hep, 69,4,990-991

Llovet JM & Finn RS 2018 ‘Negative phase 3 study of 90Y microspheres versus sorafenib in HCC‘. Lancet Oncol.19:30025-1

– Paré L, Pascual T, Seguí E, et al. 2018 ‘Association between PD1 mRNA and response to anti-PD1 monotheray across multiple cancer-types’ Ann Oncol. 29:2121-2128

Llovet JM, Pavel M, Rimola J et al. 2018. ‘Pilot Study of living donor liver …’ . Liver Transplantation, 24(3):369-379.

– Llovet JM 2018, ‘Tumors of the Liver and Biliary Tree’, In: Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine ( 20th Edition). Ed: Kasper DL, Fauci AS, Hauser SL, Longo DL, Jameson JL, Loscalzo J. Chapter 78; 144-157.


Selected research activities

  • Senior Editor. Clinical Cancer Research
  • Director. Master in Translational Medicine. Universitat de Barcelona
  • Executive Committee. IDIBAPS
  • Director Liver Cancer Program. ICAHN School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
  • Fellow Award. American Association for the Study of the Liver Diseases (AASLD)
  • Tisch Cancer Institute Award. NCI designated Cancer Center Recognition ISMMS
  • President, AASLD-SIG Liver Tumors