A commitment
to provide
hope to patients
in times of need

Dr. Wipf is the Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. He directs the Center for Chemical Methodologies and Library Development at the University, and he is a member of the editorial board of several synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry journals and periodicals.

Dr. Wipf is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. His research contributions include the total synthesis of natural products, organometallic and heterocyclic chemistry, and medicinal and computational chemistry. He has coauthored over 600 journal articles and patents.

Dr. Robbins is a biopharmaceutical entrepreneur with extensive operational and team building experience. She has made a career of building companies from the ground up. She co-founded early biopharmaceutical companies NeurogesX, Inc. (NASD: NGSX, sold to Acorda Therapeutics), Limerick BioPharma, Labrys Biologics (sold to TEVA 2014), and Blade Therapeutics.

She has functioned as an outside advisor to investors and in this capacity served as development advisor to Rinat Neurosciences, supporting the 2006 Pfizer acquisition. She also managed diligence and development planning to enable spinout of a former Rinat-Pfizer biologic asset into Labrys Biologics. She has been a scientific and strategic advisor to many entrepreneurs, nascent biotechs, and pharmaceutical companies. Her expertise includes small and large molecule development from discovery through translational research through the clinic.

Dr. Robbins received her BS from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, and her MD from the Medical College of Pennsylvania. She completed postgraduate training in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and in anesthesiology and pain at the Johns Hopkins University Medical Institutions. She served as Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at UCSF from 1995-2000 and has been teaching faculty at the Stanford University School of Medicine since 2002. She is board certified in anesthesiology.

Dr. Gallop consults with emerging biotechnology companies on drug discovery technologies and strategies, with an emphasis on oncology, neuroscience, gastrointestinal disorders, and prodrug design.

From 2012 to 2017 he served as the founding Chief Scientific Officer at Nurix, Inc., a venture-backed discovery company formed to explore drug development targeting ubiquitin ligase enzymes, with therapeutic applications spanning oncology, immunology, inflammation, and immuno-oncology.

Prior to joining Nurix, he was Senior Vice President of Research at XenoPort, Inc., a company he co-founded in 1999 with the mission of improving the clinical utility of medicines by exploiting active transport mechanisms to optimize pharmacokinetic properties of drugs. While at XenoPort, his team discovered Horizant, a prodrug of gabapentin that was approved by the FDA in 2011 and the MHW in Japan in 2012 for the treatment of restless legs syndrome and neuropathic pain.

Previously, Dr. Gallop was Senior Director of Combinatorial Chemistry at Affymax.

He is recognized as an early pioneer and international expert in solid-phase combinatorial chemistry and was a recipient of the ACROS award of the Belgian Organic Synthesis Symposium in 1996 for his outstanding contributions to this field.

He is an inventor on more than 100 issued or pending US, and PCT patents and an author of over 60 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. In 1994, he co-authored a landmark review of the then-emerging field of combinatorial chemistry that has subsequently become one of the most highly cited papers in chemistry.

After undergraduate studies in New Zealand, he obtained his PhD degrees in inorganic chemistry from the University of Cambridge and was a Lindemann postdoctoral fellow in the laboratories of Profs. Peter G. Schultz and Robert G. Bergman at the University of California, Berkeley.

Clete A. Kushida, MD, PhD is a neurologist, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, division chief and medical director of Stanford Sleep Medicine, and director of the Stanford Center for Human Sleep Research. He is founding president of the World Sleep Society, past president of the World Sleep Federation, past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, past president of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies Board of Directors, and founding president of the California Sleep Society.

Dr. Kushida has conducted basic and clinical sleep research since 1977, served as principal investigator for numerous large federal- and industry-sponsored studies, and his research interests include the anatomic and physiologic changes associated with sleep apnea, the management of restless legs syndrome, and countermeasures for sleep loss.

Dr. Kushida has served as chair of the Standards of Practice Committee of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and is currently chair of the International Sleep Medicine Guidelines Committee of the World Sleep Society. He has authored or edited over 250 publications; he has also authored or edited 6 books, including serving as editor-in-chief of the largest publication on the field of sleep to date, the Encyclopedia of Sleep (4 volumes, 429 chapters, 748 authors), and he serves as editor-in-chief of the journal Sleep Science and Practice. He is a past recipient of the highest professional awards in the field of sleep medicine, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s Nathaniel Kleitman Distinguished Service Award, and the World Sleep Society’s Distinguished Service Award.

Prior to creating Panacea Venture, James Huang joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers China as a managing partner in 2011 and focuses on the firm’s life science investment. His main investment interests are innovation around China’s growing healthcare markets and helping entrepreneurs build companies. Before KPCB China, Mr. Huang was a managing partner at Vivo Ventures. He has made more than 15 investments in China since 2007.

Before joining Vivo in 2007, Mr. Huang was president of Anesiva, a biopharmaceutical company focused on pain-management treatments. During his 20-year career in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, he held various senior positions in business development, sales, marketing and R&D with Tularik Inc. (acquired by Amgen), GlaxoSmithKline LLC, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, and ALZA Corp. (acquired by Johnson & Johnson).

Mr. Huang is Chairman of Board at Kindstar Global and JHL Biotech, and Director at GenScript, ChiralQuest, Zenesis, CVie Therapeutics, EntreMed, and XWPharma.

Mr. Huang received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BS degree in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He was born in Taipei, Taiwan.

Mr. Blum joined XWPharma in April 2020 as President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Blum had previously founded, built, and led the commercial organizations at a series of emerging growth biopharmas, including from 2000 until 2007 at ICOS Corp. (acquired by Eli Lilly), Theravance from 2007 to 2016, Omeros Corp. 2016 to 2018 and Madrigal Pharmaceuticals 2018 to 2020. From 1987 to 2000 he progressed through marketing, sales, and business leadership roles at Merck and Co. with increasing US and international responsibilities. Over the past 34 years, he was responsible for national and global launches, turn-arounds, and rapid sales acceleration for over 20 medicines in a wide variety of therapeutic categories, including specialty products and blockbusters. His work has earned multiple industry accolades and is the subject of 2 Harvard Business School case studies.

Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Mr. Blum served as an officer in the US Army Special Forces (Honor Graduate of Special Operations Detachment Officer Course 6-86), studied International Finance as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Zurich, earned his undergraduate degree in Economics from Princeton University magna cum laude and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is active in community service and from 2009-2019 he and his wife owned and operated a medical clinic in Minneapolis, Minnesota that has treated thousands of individuals in recovery from chemical and alcohol dependency.

Mr. Giovannetti brings to our Board over 36 years of financial management and oversight experience primarily focused on the biotechnology industry. Prior to his retirement in 2020, he served as a Senior Partner and Global Life Sciences Sector Leader at Ernst & Young LLP, where he supported client teams working in the U.S. and China, across Europe, India, Japan and Brazil. He has been part of the deal team for numerous IPOs and following-on offerings as well as consulting on alliance, merger, and spin-off transactions. Mr. Giovanetti is a Certified Public Accountant in Massachusetts and California (inactive).

Mr. Giovannetti was formerly a Member of the Board of Directors of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and currently serves on the Board of Directors for biopharma Teon Therapeutics, the Board of non-profit Life Science Cares, and the Board of Trustees of Linfield University, from which he graduated with a BA in Accounting. Mr. Giovannetti has published numerous articles and is co-author of the book, Managing Biotechnology: From Science to Market in the Digital Age.

Edward Liu is Partner at WI Harper Group. He has sourced investments in multiple biotech and high-tech enterprises and currently sits on the board of RWDC Industries, XWPharma, YesHealth, Space Cycle, Ecoinno and Health2Sync. He also manages the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund II with Joe Tsai of Alibaba.

Edward was formerly Head of China Operations at The Piacente Group, a full-service investor relations and financial communications consulting firm, and Director of Investor Relations at Xinhua Finance (TSE:9399), a diversified financial services company based in Shanghai and Beijing.

Edward graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Finance and Marketing from University of San Diego and has an MBA from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Edward is also a member of Citi Private Bank’s NextGen class of 2011 and donates regularly to his favorite non-profits, The Nature Conservancy and Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS).

Michael M. Morrissey, Ph.D., has served as a director and as Exelixis’ President and Chief Executive Officer since July 2010. Dr. Morrissey has held positions of increasing responsibility at Exelixis since he joined the company in February 2000, including serving as President of Research and Development from January 2007 until July 2010. From 1991 to 2000, Dr. Morrissey held several positions at Berlex Biosciences, last holding the position of Vice President, Discovery Research.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Morrissey served as a Senior Scientist and Project Team Leader in Medicinal Chemistry at CIBA-Geigy Corporation. He is the author of numerous scientific publications in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery and an inventor on 70 issued U.S. patents and 25 additional published U.S. patent applications.

Dr. Morrissey holds a B.S. (Honors) in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University.

Asish K. Xavier serves as the Vice President, Venture Investments at Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc. (JJDC).  He is based at the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Center in South San Francisco, CA.  Dr. Xavier focuses on investments in biotechnology, diagnostics and machine learning.  He joined JJDC in 2004 and has led or co-led investments in over 25 biotech, diagnostics, machine learning and medtech companies.

Dr. Xavier received a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Houston and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with honors.  He received a Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. Dr. Xavier was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University.

Jia-Ning Xiang, PhD founded XWPharma and has served as its Chief Scientific Officer since April 2020 and Member of the Board of Directors since February 2014. Previously, he served as Chief Executive Officer. He also was Chairman of the Board from December 2019 until December 2020.

From 2007 to 2013 Dr. Xiang was Senior Director and Head of Integrated Platform & Sciences and Head of Medicinal Chemistry, respectively, at the GlaxoSmithKline Neuroscience Center in Shanghai. Dr. Xiang was Director of Medicinal Chemistry at XenoPort from 2001 to 2007.

Prior to that he spent 9 years at SmithKline Beecham from 1992 to 2001, holding various positions, most recently as Assistant Director of Medicinal Chemistry. Dr. Xiang holds 46 issued U.S. patents and contributed to 9 compounds that were studied in clinical trials of central nervous system disorders, including the marketed drug Horizant for the treatment of Restless Legs Syndrome and Neuropathic Pain.

Dr. Xiang holds a BS in Chemistry from Wuhan University in China, and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from University of Virginia, and conducted postdoctoral research in Chemistry at California Institute of Technology.

Nikki Zhang is a Director at KPCB China and Panacea Venture. Since joining the team in 2016, she has focused on investments in life sciences and healthcare areas.

Ms. Zhang has extensive working experience in both biotech and medical device industries. Before joining KPCB, Ms. Zhang worked at Zimmer Biomet Inc., where she took multiple leadership roles to manage the company’s global trauma business, M&A, and post-merger integration projects. Earlier in her career, Ms. Zhang was a business development manager at Hutchison MediPharma, where she specialized in corporate strategy, global licensing, and strategic partnership management.

Ms. Zhang holds an MBA from The Fuqua School of Business of Duke University. She also received an MA in Biotechnology from Columbia University and a BS in Biochemistry from The University of Texas at Austin.