Speaker Bios

The following speakers are presenting at SEED Kickoff Meeting - Shanghai .  (See  Program  for a detailed schedule.)  Return to Speakers page.

Speakers and Panelists:

Ronghui Gao, MD, MBA - Business Development Director, BioBay

Following medical training, Ronghui worked as a medical doctor for seven years in screening and managing infectious diseases and vaccination programs in China. He then joined Nestle, worked in the sales & marketing team in the nutritional department as a regional manager in Shanghai. He relocated to the UK where he completed his MBA in Manchester Business School and worked in a UK based pharmaceutical marketing consultancy company, Pharma Marketing Academy, and InforMed Direct, as a consultant. Ronghui worked closely with a number of major pharmaceutical companies in Europe, namely AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis, in areas of strategic marketing planning, new product launch, market research as well as KOL management for major brands. Rong Hui then relocated back to Shanghai and set up a joint marketing consulting firm in the healthcare market in 2005. His major clients include Astrazeneca, J&J and Sanofi-Aventis. Rong Hui joined BioBay in 2008. His current role is Business Development Director. He works closely with a wide range of life-science enterprises, VCs and bio-clusters worldwide and helps them set up their operations in China and facilitate their business by seeking fund, business partners as well as government support. Ronghui’s specific area of interests include strategic marketing, marketing planning, KOL management, company start-up, government communication and business development in the healthcare industry.

Frank Grams, PhD - Global Business Development Director, Roche Global Pharma Partnering

Frank has been instrumental in setting up the Shanghai office of Roche Pharma Partnering. The office is strengthening Roche’s presence in the region and is mainly responsible for partnering activities in Korea, Singapore and Greater China including Taiwan and Hong Kong. Prior to taking up this post, from 2006 Frank was Global Head, Drug Delivery Partnering, responsible for both the strategic and life-cycle management activities related to drug delivery partnering. Frank was a Global Alliance Director from 2002, managing pivotal research alliances such as Chugai, Evotec, SGX, Syrrx and Biotie. He has been involved in about 100 transactions including product and technology deals, in- and out-licensing opportunities and also an acquisition. Frank joined the Roche Pharma Partnering team as Head of Opportunity Surveillance in July 2001, having previously worked in various research functions in Roche and at Boehringer Mannheim GmbH. Frank has a degree in chemistry from the University of Heidelberg and a Ph.D. from the Technical University of Munich within the group of Nobel laureate Robert Huber (Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry at Martinsried). His more than 40 papers have been published in well known peer-reviewed journals such as Nature Structural Biology, Journal of Molecular Biology etc. and have been cited about a thousand times. Five of them have been cited even more than a hundred times. He is also the co-author on 19 patents and patent applications.

Jason (Gang) Jin, MD, PhD - CEO, ShanghaiBio Corporation

Dr. Jason (Gang) Jin is the President & CEO of ShanghaiBio Corporation (SBC for CRO), and Co-Founder & Executive VP of Global Business of Shanghai Biochip Co. Ltd (SBC), a leading biotech in China with lab operations at Shanghai and global business office at New Jersey in U.S. Dr. Jin is also an adjunct professor at the Shanghai Institutes of Biological Sciences (SIBS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and School of Pharmacy, Fudan University. Dr. Jin has extensive scientific and business development experience in drug discovery and development. He has successfully developed and managed a number of R&D collaborative projects in biology discovery, preclinical research, and clinical trials with top global pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Dr. Jin has held the former positions of Director of Genomics Lab at Purdue Pharma (USA), Director of Functional Genomics at Salk Institute (USA), Founder Director of National Engineering Center for Biochip at Shanghai (China), and radiologist at Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital (China). He received Ph.D. and Postdoctoral Fellow in biology from University of California, San Diego (USA), and medical degree from School of Medicine, Fudan University (Shanghai Medical University, China).

Lan Kang, MBA - Client Partner, Korn/Ferry (Shanghai) Human Capital Consulting Co., Ltd.

Ms. Lan Kang is a Client Partner at Korn/Ferry International’s Greater China Office. She is specializing in senior executive search in Healthcare/ Life Science market in China. Prior to joining the Firm, Ms. Kang spent over 4 years working on management consulting at McKinsey & Company’s Greater China office and was a core member of its Healthcare Practice. She assisted leading pharmaceutical, medical devices and other Healthcare related multinational and local companies in strategy development, operation improvement, and change management projects. Prior to that, Ms. Kang specialized in Cancer Research in the U.S. for five years, first as a researcher in the Surgery Department at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC, then as a Research Scientist working on drug discovery at Wyeth, Pearl River, NY. Ms. Kang is not only well-connected in the Life Science field in China, but also in close contact with the Chinese Pharmaceutical / Biotech professional communities in the US. She is also a member of BayHelix group, a non-profit organization of leaders of Chinese origin in the global life sciences and healthcare community. Born in Nanjing, Ms. Kang obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Biological Science and Technology from Zhejiang University in China, and a Master’s degree in Biochemistry from Tulane University in the U.S. She also received an MBA in the Healthcare Program with Honors from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Esther H. Lim, JD - Founding Managing Partner, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP, Shanghai Office

Esther H. Lim is the founding managing partner of the Shanghai office of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP. She has a broad patent practice, including litigation, prosecution, licensing, opinions, due diligence investigations, and portfolio management. She has represented many international companies from Asia, Europe, and the U.S. in complex cases. Ms. Lim frequently lectures and writes internationally on issues relating to procurement and enforcement of U.S. intellectual property rights. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Last Month at the Federal Circuit, Finnegan’s monthly newsletter distributed to subscribers worldwide. Ms. Lim taught advanced patent law and public policy courses as an adjunct professor at Howard University School of Law in the U.S. for six years. Beginning in 2010, she will teach a new IP course to postgraduate law students at Renmin University School of Law in China. Ms. Lim served on the Board of Governors of the D.C. Bar with over 85,000 members and on the Board of Governors for the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) representing the interests of over 40,000 attorneys. She is Past President of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of the Greater Washington D.C. Area. In 2005, she received NAPABA’s “Best Lawyers Under 40” award. Ms. Lim is a 2007 recipient of the Burton Award for Legal Achievement, a national award for legal writing. Ms. Lim served as a law clerk to the Honorable Randall R. Rader of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Rajesh Parekh, PhD - Director, Head of Asia Healthcare Practice, McKinsey & Company 

Dr. Rajesh (Raj) Parekh, a Director in the Shanghai Office of McKinsey & Company is the leader of McKinsey’s Asia healthcare practice. Since moving to Shanghai in 2005, he has focused his efforts primarily on serving pharmaceutical and medical device clients across Asia on growth strategy, R&D strategy, M&A, and business unit strategy related issues. Some of his recent experiences in include: