Christopher D. Hillyer MD

Christopher D. Hillyer, MD is President and CEO, New York Blood Center Enterprises (NYBCe), Inc; General Partner, NYBC Ventures; Chief Scientific Officer and Distinguished Investigator, Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute; and Professor, Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell College of Medicine.

Over the past nearly 15 years, Hillyer has transformed NYBCe into a >$550M/yr. (revenue) blood and cellular therapies company employing close to 2500 associates, expanding it from a regional to national presence, completing five corporate acquisitions, and more than doubling the Company.

Internationally recognized for his expertise in hematology, blood transfusion and transplantation, and cellular and related therapies, Dr. Hillyer brings a unique combination of vision, executional experience, and proven success as a business executive, scientist, board member, and global leader.

Prior to coming to New York, Dr. Hillyer was the endowed Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, where he served as Director of the Emory Center for Transfusion and Cellular Therapies; at Emory, he was also an attending physician on the Bone Marrow Transplant Service.

Dr. Hillyer was co-founder, President and CEO, Transfusion & Transplantation Technologies, Inc. (3Ti) and co-founder and Director, Board of Members, HemeXcel Purchasing Alliance, LLC and HemeXcel Resources, LLC.  He is a holder of multiple patents or patents pending from his time at Emory and at NYBC for devices and processes related to blood banking, cellular therapies, including the iPSC MasterBank, and virus blocking peptides, amongst others. In 2021, Hillyer founded, and is General Partner of Boston-based, NYBC Ventures, a $50M early-stage life sciences investment fund focused on hematology, cell therapies and regenerative medicine, and related fields.

Dr. Hillyer serves, or has served, on numerous for-profit and not-for-profit boards; many NIH study sections including as Chair of the NHLBI committee overseeing the SBIR/STTR program for over 10 years; and leadership positions within associations and societies including as President, Board of Directors of AABB (now named the Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies), as a Trustee of the National Blood Foundation, and as an associate editor of the journal TRANSFUSION.

Hillyer has led NYBCe to worldwide recognition for its high humanitarian impact, research and development, and commercial collaboration. NYBCe serves over 50 million people, more than 600 hospitals, and dozens of research organizations, academic institutions, and biomedical companies, annually.  With colleagues, Hillyer led NYBC’s BLA group having NYBC’s HEMACORD become the first ever FDA licensed stem cell product in the US, an event recognized with a Prix Galien Award in 2014; indeed, NYBC provides clinical grade and research CB stem cells to over 42 countries around the world.  He is also the driving force to expand NYBCe’s strategic and geographic reach including: securing upzoning for an 18-story life sciences hub that will house NYBC’s R&D institute and be a home for life science companies at all stages of development; and consolidation of NYBC’s corporate operations into a new campus on 18 acres in Rye, NY. For these, he has been recognized in Crain’s New York annual “Notable Health Care Leaders” edition in ’21 and ’22, for consummate leadership, pioneering accomplishments, crisis management and commitment to mentoring, and regularly in City & State New York’s Health Power 100.

Dr. Hillyer is editor of 13 textbooks in transfusion medicine including the 16-18^th editions of the AABB Technical Manual and Hillyer’s Transfusion Medicine and Hemostasis: Clinical and Laboratory Aspects, now in its 4^th edition, continues a primary resource for physicians throughout the world. Author of over 175 articles pertaining to transfusion, human immunodeficiency virus, and herpes viruses, hematopoietic stem cells, and terminal erythrocyte differentiation, Dr. Hillyer has been awarded tens of millions of dollars in research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other agencies. Hillyer held T, U, R01, and P01 grants and contracts and PI including detailed studies using large cohorts of non-human primates as a model for HIV/AIDS at the Emory National Primate Research Center.

Dr. Hillyer received AABB’s Emily Cooley Award for his “significant commitment and contributions to the field of transfusion medicine…”, an AABB’s President’s Award, and two iterative Tiffany Awards from the American Red Cross for his work in Africa as co-director of the AABB/Emory cooperative agreement, part of the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Dr. Hillyer is board certified in internal medicine, hematology, medical oncology and transfusion medicine. He received his BS with honors from Trinity College and his MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine, with postgraduate training and fellowships in hematology-oncology, transfusion medicine, and bone marrow transplantation at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston.