Jimmy Zhang

Executive Mentor at QB3 / Bakar Labs

Speaker

Dr. Jimmy Zhang has 20+ years of experience and expertise in both large pharmas and start-up companies, in strategy, management, business development, and operations, as well as in venture investments and board directorship. Jimmy is an executive mentor of the biotech incubator QB3 and Bakar Labs at University of California Berkeley and UCSF, and advises companies in the US, China and Korea on strategy, business development and other operation matters and just closed a NewCo deal as Chief Business Officer of Sciwind with Verdiva Bio (the largest NewCo Series A of over $410M). Jimmy is also SVP of BD at Frontier Biotechnologies.

Jimmy was founder, Chairman and CEO of gene and cell therapy companies AccuGen Group and Vinta Bio and raised over US$64M from strategic and venture investors. He was a Venture Partner at Lilly Asia Ventures, a Board Director of Just Biotherapeutics when acquired by Evotec. Jimmy was Vice President of Transactions at Johnson & Johnson, where he led the transactional and partnership management activities and strategy in Asia Pacific region in pharmaceuticals, medical devices & diagnostics and consumer products, as well as fund relationship and partnership, and Managing Director, MSD Early Investments – Greater China at Merck & Co. responsible for business development and venture investments, and a member of Merck Research Lab (China) Senior Leadership Team. He was also a Board Director of BeiGene Co, Ltd. and an Advisor Board member of Cenova Ventures. Jimmy was previously SVP Business Development at Synergenics (an accelerator founded and led by Dr. Bill Rutter, one of the founding fathers and pioneers of the biotech industry), a consultant at McKinsey & Company, a registered patent agent in the Palo Alto office of Morrison & Foerster, and a project manager at Chiron Corporation (now part of Novartis).

Jimmy was a founding member and former Chairman of BayHelix Group. He is an adjunct professor teaching business development and master degree mentor at Yeehong Business School, having taught over 1,000 students in both the US and China. He holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, where he was elected as the treasurer of MIT Graduate Student Council; a PhD in biomedical sciences from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, where he worked closely with three Nobel Laureates. Jimmy published in Cell, Nature, Neuron, and JBC, and holds multiple patents, authored a Book Chapter “The Emergence and Transformation of China in Biotechnology” in Biotechnology Entrepreneurship 2nd edition published by Elsevier in 2020, and co-authored Harvard Business School case BeiGene and BeiGene Teaching Note, which were published by Harvard Business School Publishing.