Zhi Yang (Ph.D.), BioVeda China, Founder, Chairman & Managing Partner Close Window

Zhi Yang, PhD is Founder, Chairman and Managing Partner of BioVeda China. He has over twenty years of experience in the Life Sciences industry in China and the U.S. as a venture capital investor, senior management executive, entrepreneur, and scientific inventor. As a venture capital investor, he founded BioVeda China in 2005, the first Life Sciences investment firm in China. Dr. Yang has raised capital from prominent Asian, European and U.S. institutional investors for his private venture growth stage funds. As a result of his broad and privileged CEO, government, overseas Chinese scholars, and international financial and biopharmaceutical industry networks, Dr. Yang has sourced and developed a highly successful and diversified Life Sciences portfolio of companies, which include, Cathay Industrial Biotech, Ltd., NOD Pharmaceuticals, Ealong Biotech, CITIC Pharmaceuticals, and First China Medicine (Aildenafil). Through Dr. Yang¡¯s venture capital and investment banking networks, BioVeda China has led its financings, and syndicated with the most prominent international private equity firms. Prior to forming BioVeda China, Dr. Yang co-founded in 2000 BioVeda Capital, an international Life Sciences venture capital firm for which he developed a successful portfolio of twelve Life Sciences¡¯ companies based primarily in the U.S. His portfolio included Idun Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfzer), Dynavax (NASDAQ IPO: DVAX), Paratek Pharmaceuticals (Merck alliance), Memory, and Renovis (NASDAQ IPO: RVNX), Memory Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ IPO: MEMY), and Renovo in the UK (LSE IPO).

As an executive, Dr. Yang has held senior scientific and management positions in both biotech and pharmaceutical companies, including Sinogen, Incyte Pharmaceuticals, Prolinx, Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, and Systemix. During his industry years, he was interim CEO, VP Business Development, VP of R&D, Director of Molecular Biology, Group Leader and Senior/Principal Scientist. As an entrepreneur, he co-founded businesses in the U.S. and China, which include BioChain Institute, Genex Biosciences, Crimson Pharmaceuticals, Sinoscience Partners and Sciprogene. He is also the principal inventor of more than 10 U.S. and international patents. Prior to joining industry, Dr. Yang was a Senior Associate Fellow and faculty member at Rockefeller University. He received his Masters and Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard University, where his thesis advisors were Dr. Walter Gilbert, a Nobel laureate, and Dr. Jack Strominger, a world-renowned immunologist. He obtained his B.S. in Virology from Wuhan University. Dr. Yang was ranked #1 among all graduate students in the class of 1982 of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences; and he was ranked #1 among the first group of 21 students, selected from several thousand, to study in the U.S. in 1982 with the CUSBEA (China-U.S. Biological Science Education Association) program. .

Dr. Yang serves on the Board of Directors of BioVeda China¡¯s investee companies including Cathay Industrial Biotech (Shanghai/Shandong, China), Ealong Biotech (Jiangsu, China), and CITIC Pharmaceuticals (Beijing, China).

Dr. Yang is an Advisor to the China Health & Medical Development Foundation under the Ministry of Health (Beijing, China), and Asia Resources (Beijing/Hong Kong).