Vasu has more than 25 years of experience in oncology drug discovery and has numerous years of experience in medicinal chemistry research. Vasu holds a PhD in organic chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and later pursued post-doctoral research at University of California at Berkeley and University of California at San Francisco. Vasu was at Discovery Partners, Exelixis Inc. and at pH-Pharma. He was responsible for contributing to several INDs. His work focused on development of small molecules as therapeutic drugs, including discovery and design of toxins as payloads for antibody conjugates (ADCs). He is a co-inventor of an approved drug Cabometyx (Cabozantinib, a c-met inhibitor). He has more than 18 patents issued and several other publications.