Wafa Samara serves as vice president and chief pharmacy officer at City of Hope, a leading cancer research and treatment organization based in Duarte, California.
In this role she leads pharmacy services across the institution and has championed an expanded vision of the oncology pharmacist as an integrated member of the clinical care team rather than a medication gatekeeper.
Under her leadership, City of Hope embeds pharmacists within multidisciplinary teams to help ensure patients receive the right medication at the right time, and the institution prioritizes recruiting oncology-certified pharmacists. She has been a public voice on the role of pharmacists in precision oncology and on advancing pharmacy practice in cancer care. Dr. Samara helped establish a pharmacy residency program in medication-use safety and policy through a collaboration between City of Hope and BD.
She has been named to Becker’s list of hospital and health system chief pharmacy officers to know.
Her leadership reflects a focus on elevating the clinical contributions of pharmacists in the complex, high-acuity setting of cancer treatment.