George Chen Biography

George Chen, MD MBA, is an oncologist by training with a successful track record in the world of global pharmaceutical companies. Prior to founding D3 Bio, Dr. Chen held senior global positions in research, drug development and management at leading institutions, such as the National Institutes of Health, and multinational pharmaceutical companies, such as Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, BeiGene, and Astra Zeneca. At these organizations he led development and regulatory registrations of blockbuster drugs into the U.S. and Chinese markets, directing more than 70 IND approvals and more than 30 NDAs. His medical degree is from the Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University and his MBA is from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

D3 Bio

D3 Bio, Inc is an “in China, for global” biotech company aiming to become a world-class biotherapeutic company to develop and register the First/best-in-class medicines for cancer and autoimmune disease patients in large unmet medical needs through a continuously progressing cycle of using the insight of Development to guide Discovery and back to Development process. The company has launched 6 pre-clinical portfolio projects with first and best in class potential and recently received IND clearance from the FDA to initiate Phase 1 trial for D3S-001.

D3 Bio is backed by a syndicate of world-class investors whose support underscores their belief in the promise of the Company. Major investors include Boyu Capital, Matrix Partners China, Sequoia Capital China, Temasek, and WuXi AppTec's Corporate Venture Fund.

In this episode of Behind Biotech, we spoke with George about:

Training as an oncologist in China in the 80s and his motivation to come to the US to learn about immunotherapy
His experience of building the foundation of BeiGene as the company’s first Chief Medical Officer
The success story of and lessons learned from developing Tagrisso, an EGFR-TKI for NSCLC, at Astrazeneca China
D3 Bio’s plans after launching with a $200M Series A-the second largest Series A in 2020 of any biotech company