Dr. Jason S. Xiang: Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Xiang is an accomplished Medicinal Chemist with over 20 years’ experience in discovery and development of therapeutics for oncology, autoimmune and metabolic diseases. Dr. Xiang’s expertise spans multiple therapeutic modalities including small molecules, antibody-drug conjugates, bifunctional protein degraders (PROTACs), etc. Dr. Xiang led numerous preclinical and development programs that led to multiple clinical products including three commercial products. Prior to founding Polymed, Dr. Xiang led the research and development team at Suzhou Kintor (HKG:9939) as Chief Technology Officer, and led Chemistry Department at Shanghai ChemPartner as Vice President for 6 years. Dr. Xiang started his industrial career at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer Inc.)/Pfizer Inc., where he led preclinical drug discovery teams during his 13 yr career. Dr. Xiang has received numerous awards such as Monsanto Outstanding Research Award, Abbott Excellent Organic Research Award, Wyeth Clinical Candidate Award and 2017 Shanghai Small Business Innovation Award. He published 63 research articles in top-tier journals and 18 Issued patents. In addition to his scientific acumen, Dr. Xiang is a proven goal-oriented business leader and has developed business strategy, raised funds for early-stage ventures and executed on strategic collaborations with large pharma, biotech, venture and academic partners.
Dr. Susan Wang: Senior Vice President, Biology
Dr, Wang joins Polymed with more than 20 years of diverse experience in research, drug discovery and development across a wide spectrum of therapeutic areas including autoimmune diseases, cancer and diabetes using small molecule, peptide or biological drug candidates. During her 13 years at Wyeth (acquired by Pfizer Inc.)/Pfizer Inc., where she was a project leader for many multidisciplinary teams, Dr. Wang and her teams supported numerous preclinical and clinical stage projects from target identification, HTS assay development, lead characterization, and mechanism of action evaluation of drugs targeting enzymes, GPCRs or nuclear receptors. Dr. Wang received several awards including the Wyeth Above and Beyond Award. Later at multiple startup biotech companies, Dr. Wang served as Director of Biology, led many projects at stages ranging from preclinical to Phase II clinical trials. She was also a key contributor to the development of label-free assay platforms for ion channels and transporters using x-ray fluorescence technology.
Dr. Wang received her B.S. in Microbiology from Fudan University and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from North Texas University. Dr. Wang completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Wang has published more than 30 research articles in high-impact journals such as Cell and Cell Biology.
Dr. He Zhou: Senior Vice President and Chief Operation Officer, Biology
Dr, Zhou is a seasoned industry veteran with 20+ years of experience in preclinical/clinical drug development, and management. Prior to joining Polymed, Dr. Zhou served as Head of Oncology Pharmacology at Momenta Pharmaceuticals (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson), Head of Oncology Pharmacology and Executive Director at Shanghai ChemPartner, Senior Director in Clinical Biomarker at BeiGene, China General Manager and VP at HiFiBiO Therapeutics, Head of Research and VP at Beijing Migrasome Therapeutics. She led multiple projects, including 5 (3 antibodies, a small molecule, and a carbohydrate) as a core member through screening to successful IND filing, with 10+ drug candidates entering clinical trials, 3 approved and marketed. With her medical training, she also participated in multiple Phase I-III clinical trials in US and China, led and completed 1 Phase I clinical trial in China.
Dr. Zhou received her B.S. in Medicine and a M.S. in Immunology from Peking University Health Science Center (formerly Beijing Medical University) and her Ph.D. in Immunology from University of Mississippi Medical Center. She completed her postdoctoral training in Immuno-Oncology in Dr. Ralph Reisfeld’s laboratory at The Scripps Research Institute. She has published 40 research articles in high-impact journals such as Cancer Cell and Nature Communications, and 6 issued patents.
Dr. Yufeng Chen: Senior Vice President, Pharmaceutical Development
Dr. Chen brings in more than 20 years of small-molecule drug discovery experiences. Prior to joining Polymed, Dr. Chen worked at Shanghai ChemPartner and Hangzhou Adelai Nortye Biopharma with increasing responsibilities. He successfully advanced three projects into clinical stages. Dr. Chen received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He received his postdoctoral training at Georgetown University and University of Illinois at Chicago.
Dr. Lei Wu: Vice President, Medicinal Chemistry
Dr. Lei Wu has more than 10 years of drug discovery experiences. She served as a Principal Sscientist and a Project Leader at Shanghai ChemPartner and Regor Therapeutics.. Dr. Lei Wu received her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry of Chinese Academy of Sciences and worked as a Researcher at Harvard Medical School. She published more than 10 research articles in top tier journals such as Nature.
Rui Yang: Director, Biology
Ms. Yang brings in 10 Years of Research and Project Management Experiences. She previously worked as a Researcher at Hangzhou ConVerd and Beijing CapitalBio. Ms. Yang received her Mphil from Queen's University Belfast, UK.
Dr. Bing Zhang: Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Operations
Dr. Zhang has ten years of experiences in novel drug discovery. Prior to Polymed, Dr. Zhang worked as an Associate Director at Viva Biotech,and a Director at ChiaTai Tianqing Pharmaceutical Group. Dr. Zhang received his Ph.D. in Biology at Durham University, UK and completed his Postdoctoral training at Oklahoma State University, USA.
Dr. Zhijian Lu: Senior Vice President
Dr. Zhijian Lu is a skilled leader with in-depth knowledge and extensive experience in biotherapeutic research and development. He has an established track record working in cross functional teams to overcome technical and strategic issues for biotherapeutic pipeline projects. Dr. Lu’s industrial career started in Genetics Institute, where his researches were in the areas of peptide display, cytokine structure/function studies, and signal transduction/functional proteomics. After Genetics Institute was integrated into Wyeth and then Pfizer, Dr. Lu led a number of technology platforms for biotherapeutic discovery, and managed protein drug projects from hit generation and to candidate selection, as well as explored potential collaborations in Asia Pacific area for novel methods used in biotherapeutic discovery. Dr. Lu later joined Novartis to lead its biologics discovery unit in Shanghai where he worked for 5 years. As part of the global NIBR organization, the unit worked with disease areas such as Oncology, Immunology, Respiratory Diseases, Infectious Diseases and Ophthalmology to create novel biotherapeutics. Dr Lu is seasoned manager for developing talents and building high performing teams. He is also entrepreneurial in leveraging internal and external opportunities for enhancing internal pipeline/platform/capacity.
Dr. Zhijian Lu’ scientific trainings included protein biochemistry studies in Dr. Richard Laursen’s laboratory for a PhD degree, and the post-doctoral training in Dr. Gobind Khorana’s laboratory at MIT on structure-function relationship of rhodopsin.