Backers included ARCH Venture Partners, 6 Dimensions Capital, Boyu Capital, Yunfeng Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Blue Pool Capital.
Led by Co-founder, President, and CEO Dr. Zhi Hong, Brii Bio aims to accelerate the development and delivery of new medicines in China through partnerships, research and development, and the application of digital and data insight.
The company launches with three foundational and strategic partnerships that will accelerate infectious disease drug development and commercialization in China and leverage technology and data to drive improvements to the Chinese healthcare system and outcomes for patients.
These include:
– a partnership with Vir, a U.S.-based biotech focused on infectious diseases, that grants Brii Bio options on exclusive greater China rights for up to four assets in Vir’s portfolio. This therapeutic pipeline holds the potential to prevent, treat and cure a wide range of infectious diseases;
– a digital and data insight partnership with AliHealth, the healthcare arm of Alibaba Group to collaborate and explore new approaches to optimize clinical and commercial development efforts by capturing value evidence and improving patients’ experience with new therapies, and to explore ways to accelerate the uptake of new medicines and support appropriate use of new medicines, and
– a memorandum of understanding with WuXi AppTec and WuXi Biologics for priority access to WuXi’s research and development capabilities.
The company is headquartered in the People’s Republic of China and the United States, with offices in Shanghai, Beijing, San Francisco, and Durham, North Carolina.
The leadership team includes.
- Zhi Hong, Ph.D., Co-Founder, President, and CEO, who previously served as Senior Vice President and Head of the Infectious Diseases Therapy Area Unit at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK);
- Li Yan, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer, who previously served in senior roles at GSK and Merck;
- Lianhong Xu, Ph.D., SVP and Head of Medicinal Chemistry, who co-invented several blockbuster antiviral therapies at Gilead Sciences;
- Jean-Luc Girardet, Ph.D., SVP and Head of Pharmaceutical Sciences, who discovered and launched new gout drugs at Ardea Biosciences (AstraZeneca);
- Qing Zhu, Ph.D., VP and Head of Biopharmaceutical Research, who brings a decade of biopharma experience at MedImmune to the new role;
- Lisa Beck, VP of Business Development, who brings over 20 years of transactional experience and was most recently at Alexion Pharmaceuticals;
- James Klein, interim Chief Financial Officer, who brings 20 years of experience as CFO of several biotech and pharma companies including Triangle Pharmaceuticals.
FinSMEs
24/05/2018