Ongoing Battle Against Covid-19: Therapeutic Antibody Development

Date: April 24, 2021 @ 4:30 pm – @ 7:00 pm
Location: Free Virtual Symposium

Scientific Seminar: Ongoing Battle Against Covid-19: Therapeutic Antibody Development

Time: April 24, Saturday, 4:30-7:00 PM Pacific Time; 7:30-10:00 PM Eastern Time; April 25, Sunday, 7:30 – 10:00 AM China Time)

Length: 2.5 hours

Format: Short Presentations and Panel Discussion

Webinar Platform: Zoom Conference (be able to host up to 1,000 attendees simultaneously)

Registration Link: https://bit.ly/3wCYpVv


Speakers Bios:

Henry Ji, Ph.D. 

Chairman, President and CEO


25+ years of experience in the biotechnology and life sciences industry

Dr. Ji co-founded Sorrento and has served as a director since 2006, CEO and President since 2012, and Chairman since 2017

During his tenure at Sorrento, he has engineered and led a phenomenal growth of Sorrento through acquisition and merger including Bioserv, ScilexPharmaceuticals, Concortis Biotherapeutics, LevenaBiopharma, LACEL, TNK Therapeutics, Virttu Biologics, Ark Animal Health, and Sofusa Lymphatic Delivery Systems

Served as Sorrento’s Chief Scientific Officer from 2008 to 2012 and as its Interim CEO from 2011 to 2012

Prior to Sorrento, he held senior executive positions at CombiMatrix, Strategen and also co-founded Stratagene Genomics, a subsidiary of Stratagene, and served as its President & CEO and Director of the Board

B.S. and Ph.D.

Yang Liu, PhD 


Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer, OncoC4, Inc. Rockville, Maryland

Chairman, AcroImmune, Guangzhou, China

Dr. Liu is currently the Chairman, CEO and CSO of OncoC4 and was the Director and Professor of the Institute of Human Virology and Department of Surgery at the University of Maryland at Baltimore. Dr. Liu has received many distinguished awards including the AAAS fellow. Dr. Liu’s  laboratory established Sialoside-based pattern recognition as a mechanism of self-nonself discrimination in innate immunity. Recently, Dr. Liu co-founded and led OncoImmune, Inc to translate this original discovery into a drug for treatment of multiple human diseases. OncoImmunerecently obtained clinical proof-of-concept data in a multi-center, randomized double blind clinical phase III trial showing that our first-in-class new drug significantly accelerated clinical recovery and reduced disease progress of patients with severe and critical COVID-19.

Liang Schweizer, PhD


Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer

Liang Schweizeris the Co-founder, President and CEO of HiFiBiOTherapeutics. Previously, she co-founded HarbourBiomed and served as its CSO, successfully transforming a technology platform company to an antibody drug discovery enterprise.

Before launching her entrepreneurial career, Liang served as Head of Asian Cancer Research at Sanofi, advancing Sanofi’s Asia-Pacific oncology pipeline as well as contributing to global oncology programs from preclinical to clinical efforts. Before joining Sanofi, Liang Schweizerwas a director at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, heading a group of scientists at Leads Discovery and Optimization (LDO), overseeing 60+ in vitro pharmacology projects across different therapeutic areas. Under her leadership, the team made significant contributions to 4 marketed drugs and impacted over 20 clinical candidates. She is also a co-inventor of multiple BMS Immunoncology(IO) clinical candidates.

Liang Schweizergraduated from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) majoring in Biology. She received her Master’s degree in Microbial Engineering at the University of Minnesota with minor in Chemical Engineering. Liang earned her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University in Zurich, Switzerland. Her postdoctoral training was with Dr. Harold Varmus, a Nobel Laureate, at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), New York.

Bolyn Hubby, PhD


Chief Corporate Affairs Officer

VirBiotechnology, Inc.

Bolyn Hubby, Ph.D., has served as our Chief Corporate Affairs Officer since August 2020. In this role, she is leading our Public Private Partnerships (P3), Government Affairs, Corporate Communications, Patient Advocacy efforts, and is a member of Vir’s Research Leadership Team. Prior to this role, she served as our Senior Vice President of Research and P3 since June 2019 and served in other management roles at Vir since February 2018. From January 2017 to January 2018, Dr. Hubby was the Chief Scientific Officer at AgenovirCorporation, a gene editing company we acquired in May 2018. Prior to Agenovir, Dr. Hubby worked for Synthetic Genomics Inc. from 2013-2017, where she most recently served as Vice President of Vaccines and Antimicrobials. At Synthetic Genomics, Dr. Hubby and her colleagues advanced the company’s core synthetic biology technology for influenza vaccines into the clinic and developed novel RNA and antimicrobial platforms to address the rapid spread of infectious disease and the growing global threat of antibiotic resistance. Prior to Synthetic Genomics, Dr. Hubby served as Executive Director of Vaccines at LiquidiaTechnologies, Inc. and Head of Discovery Immunology at AlphaVax, Inc. Dr. Hubby received her B.A. in Anthropology from University of Georgia and her Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of Georgia, Department of Cellular Biology and Center for Tropical and Emerging Diseases.

Moderator

Dr. Michelle M Chen

 

Dr. Michelle Chen is Vice President and Head of Corporate Development at WuXi Biologics where she leads corporate strategies, M&A, licensing, strategic partnerships, joint ventures, newcoformation and other initiatives.  As a biotech executive and entrepreneur, she has over 20 years of industry experience in drug discovery and development, diagnostics, and technology/product development, with a track record of success in partnerships, R&D, product development and launches.  Prior to WuXiBiologics, she worked at global companies such as BioMarin, Merck, and Roche, as well as a number of biotech companies and startups in various functions.

Dr. Chen received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Washington, did her postdoctoral work at UCSF, and received bioinformatics training at Stanford University.  She is a board member of BayHelix and a life member of BayHelix, CABS and CAB.


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