Cothera Bioscience is a clinical stage biotech company developing therapeutics for previously undruggable oncology targets with high unmet medical needs. The company’s strength is in its clinically validated translational platform exploiting synthetic lethality and protein degradation pathways for cancer killing. It was formed by the core founding members of Crown Bioscience, a leading contract research organization specializing in translational oncology, together with veteran serial entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.
Leadership Team
Alex is a co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Cothera Bioscience. Before Cothera, he co-founded Crown Bioscience and served as its President, CEO and CSO. In his 12-year tenure with the company, he helped build it into a global leading provider of translational biology solutions in oncology and metabolic diseases to hundreds of global pharma and biotech companies. Alex started Cothera after Crown Bioscience’s successful IPO and its subsequent acquisition by JSR for over $400 million.
Prior to founding Crown Bioscience, Alex had experience in biotech, pharma and venture investment. He co-founded and was an executive of several biotech companies. He also worked at a global pharma and a leading life science venture capital firm in San Francisco. He currently serves as an independent director at two NASDAQ listed biopharma companies, CASI Pharmaceutical and Sorrento Therapeutics.
Alex received B.S. in Biochemistry from Fudan University in Shanghai and Ph.D. and MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He conducted post-doctoral research at Stanford University.
Yiyou is the scientific founder of Cothera Bioscience. Yiyou also serves as the Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of New Horizon Health (6606.HK), a molecular diagnostic company developing innovative technologies to cure cancer through early detection. Prior to that, Yiyou was the Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder of Crown Bioscience Inc., a leading biotech company providing services to global life science companies with specialty in oncology, and metabolic disease. The company leverages its strength in drug discovery and translational medicine to help our partners develop innovative therapeutics with clinical relevancy. He was widely recognized as a leader in translational oncology research, and accredited for the establishment of the industry leading HuPrime® technology platform. Besides his role in leading the scientific research, Dr. Chen was also responsible for CrownBio’s global sales, marketing, and strategic alliance effort. Under his leadership, CrownBio has established drug discovery partnership with majority of global pharmaceutical companies.
Before CrownBio, Yiyou was the Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Starvax Inc., a bio-pharmaceutical company based in Beijing, focusing on the development of recombinant vaccines for infectious disease and cancer. Prior to Starvax, Yiyou was a senior scientist and project leader at Genencor International, a global biotechnology company with over $1 billion dollars in annual revenue.
Dr. Chen was one of the founding members of the BayHelix Group, a global leadership group for Chinese biopharmaceutical executives. In the last 10 years, he has given multiple invited speeches on both Chinese and international science and business forums. Yiyou obtained his BS in Biochemistry from Peking University, and his Ph.D. in Experimental Pathology from University of Utah School of Medicine
Vernon C. Jiang, Ph.D., is a co-founder and executive vice president.
Dr. Jiang has 25+ years of experience in pharmaceutical industry. Before Cothera, he was a co-founder and key executive of a series of start-up companies based in the Silicon Valley, including Ferro (a subsidiary of BridgeBio), K-Gen, Recida, Kalidex and Calixa. He played a significant role in the development of Teflaro® and Zerbaxa®, two marketed products, while working at Cerexa (acquired by Forest Laboratories) and Calixa (acquired by Cubist Pharmaceuticals), respectively. Dr. Jiang started his industry career at Hoffman-La Roche. He is an inventor/co-inventor of 20+ patents.
Dr. Jiang obtained his PhD degree in chemistry from Duke University, and his B.S. from the University of Science and Technology of China.
Felix Lin is a co-founder and General Manager of Cothera’s China operations and is in charge of all the China activities for Cothera Bioscience.
Before Cothera, Felix was VP, Operations at HFK Biotechnology in Beijing, an animal breeding company that was a major vendor of experimental animals to the biotech and pharma industry. He was also a co-founder of the leading oncology CRO Crown Bioscience and acted as its VP Operations. Before Crown Bioscience, Felix worked at several drug discovery and diagnostic companies, including StarVax, DaanGene and Baoan Bioscience.
Felix obtained his BS in Biochemistry from Beijing University.
