Andrew Pecora

In 2009, The Record named Pecora among Hackensack's administration with conflicts-of-interest, as they had ownership interests in companies with business dealings with the hospital. In 2011, Pecora founded Cota Healthcare, a company to develop a classification system based on patient's "gender, age, family history, type and stage of disease, and treatments."

In 2002, Pecora was an investigator in a study of PV701, a virus that selectively attacks cancer cells. In the Phases 1 clinical trial, they found that intravenous administration of the oncolytic viruses led to inflammation of the tumor site that made it difficult to immediately determine effectiveness of the treatment. This false appearance of increase in cancer cells was confirmed by a later trial of the same oncolytic virus and also in Onyx 015, an oncolytic adenovirus. In describing the report authored by Pecora, Emily Bergsland and Alan Venook editorialized that

In 1998, Pecora started a version of the problem-based learning program at UMDNJ. An adaptation of earlier programs that allows medical students to fulfill their early basic science course requirements by examining the actual case studies.

In 1995, Hackensack was part of a large clinical study sponsored by National Cancer Institute to study the use of bone marrow transplantation to treat women with advanced breast cancer. He expressed his misgivings about only offering the procedure as part of the study as there was a chance the patients would be chosen to be a part of the control group. He instead offered direct access to the popular new procedure as an alternative to participation in the trial, allowing the patients to choose. The procedure was later proven ineffective.

From 1986 to 1989, he began a fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He then moved to Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) to become assistant director of stem cell and bone marrow transplantation from 1990 to 1993. He went on to become the program's chief director and the director of stem cell collection and storage services. Pecora has later served as the John Theurer Cancer Center's chairman, chief innovations officer, and vice president during his career at the hospital.

Pecora interned at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center from 1983 to 1984 and was a resident in internal medicine from 1984 to 1986.

Andrew Louis Pecora (born 1957) is an American hematologist and oncologist who has been involved in the research on the use of stem cells and oncolytic viruses to treat diseases, including cancer. He currently serves as chief innovations officer, professor and vice president of cancer services at the John Theurer Cancer Center, part of the Hackensack University Medical Center.

Pecora was born in 1957 in Newark, New Jersey. He was raised in nearby Nutley and graduated from Nutley High School. Pecora attended Seton Hall University, graduating in 1979 with Bachelor of Science in Biology. He then attended the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), graduating with a medical degree in 1983. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine's sub-specialties of hematology and oncology.