Leadership Team

Our team of experts begins with highly trained PhD and MS scientists from around the world. A majority of Crown Bioscience scientists bring deep understanding of pharmaceutical industry having lead major departments within the top US pharmaceutical R&D and pre-clinical programs.  CrownBio scientists engage in the design and execution of your pre-clinical drug development program using our AAALAC approved animal facilities, proprietary animal models, and in vivo surgical expertise. This results in fast delivery, cost-effective pre-clinical research services for pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies.

Executive  management

Alex Wu, Ph.D.   Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Alex Wu has over 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and research. Before co-founding Crown Bioscience, he was CBO of Starvax, Inc., a biopharmaceutical R&D company. Prior to Starvax, he was the Head of Asian Operations with Burrill & Company, a life science venture capital and merchant bank. He also co-founded and was COO of Unimicro Technologies, a life science instrumentation company. Dr. Wu started his career with Hoffmann-La Roche, where he was manager of business development and strategic planning. Dr. Wu obtained his B.S. in biochemistry from Fudan University, China and Ph.D. and MBA from University of California at Berkeley.

Jean-Pierre Wery Ph.D  President

Prior to joining CrownBio, Dr. Wery was Chief Scientific Officer at Monarch Life Sciences, a company dedicated to the discovery and development of protein biomarkers. Prior to joining Monarch, Dr. Wery spent three years at Vitae Pharmaceuticals, Inc. where he was VP of Computational Drug Discovery. Before joining Vitae he worked for 12 years at Eli Lilly and Company in various scientific and management positions. Dr. Wery received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Physics from the U. of Liege, Belgium. Following his Ph.D., he did postdoctoral studies at Purdue University with Prof. Jack Johnson. Dr. Wery has authored more than 50 abstracts and publications.

Yiyou Chen, Ph.D.     Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Chen has over a decade of experience in drug R&D. Prior to co-founding Crown Bioscience Inc., he was Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder of Starvax Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics against cancer and infectious disease. Before founding Starvax, Dr. Chen was a senior scientist and project leader at Palo Alto-based biotech company, Genencor International Inc., involved in research projects in animal modeling, protein engineering, and Immunology. Dr. Chen obtained his PhD in Experimental Pathology from University of Utah, and BS in Biochemistry from Peking University.

Chuan Joe Shih Ph.D  Executive Vice President Integrated Drug Discovery

Prior to joining Crown, Dr. Joe Shih, Ph.D., was a Distinguished Lilly Scholar of Discovery Chemistry Research and Technology at Lilly Research Laboratories (LRL), a Division of Eli Lilly and Company. Joe received a doctorate in Organic Chemistry from The Ohio State University in 1982. He was also awarded a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the National Chung-Hsing University, Taiwan in 1976, and a Master of Science in Organic Chemistry from The Ohio State University in 1979. Dr. Shih completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University under Nobel Laureate Professor E. J. Corey from 1982 to 1984. Following his postdoctoral studies, he joined Lilly as a Senior Organic Chemist in 1984. He was promoted to Research Scientist in 1989, to Senior Research Scientist in 1993, to Research Advisor in 1999, to Distinguished Research Fellow in 2004 and to Distinguished Lilly Scholar in 2007. During his tenure at Eli Lilly, Dr. Shih has distinguished himself as a premier drug hunter by contributing to many LRL oncology drug discovery efforts. Through his collaboration with Princeton University, Dr. Shih contributed to the successful antifolate drug discovery program that has led to the development of ALIMTA([R]), a blockbuster anticancer agent approved by various regulatory agencies around the globe for the treatment of mesothelioma and non-small cell lung cancer. Dr Shih is a co-inventor of ALIMTA([R]) and a pioneer in the elucidation of the unique "multi-targeted antifolate" mechanism of action of ALIMTA[R]. Dr. Shih was awarded the 2006 American Chemical Society "Heroes of Chemistry" Award for his role in the discovery and development of ALIMTA([R]).

Dr. Shih was also instrumental in leading various medicinal chemistry and drug discovery initiatives and efforts in the identification of several novel anticancer agents currently in the Lilly Oncology pipeline. Dr. Shih is widely recognized for his expertise in cancer and medicinal chemistry research. He is frequently invited to lecture and chair sessions at national and international meetings. Dr. Shih has authored and co-authored more than 180 scientific publications and presentations and holds numerous patents. Dr. Shih is also holding a position of visiting Distinguished Chair Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Key Personnel

Yining Qi  M.D., M.PH, MBA    Senior Vice President of Operation and General Manager of CrownBio Taicang Facility

Dr. Yining Qi  M.D., M.PH, MBA has 20 years experience working in Pharmaceutical, Medical Device and CRO industry. He has extensive experience in managing operations and various process improvement projects. Prior to joining CrownBio, he was Executive Director at WuXi AppTec Preclinical Facility and was responsible for Technical Operations, Client Services and Project Management. He had built an effective study planning and tracking system as well as led electronic data capture system validation project.

He worked at Merck Research Lab as Research Fellow / Group Leader in Technical Operation of Safety Assessment Division leading several data system validation and process improvement projects. During his 15 years in US, he also worked for BD and Johns Hopkins University and SITEK research lab. Before he went to US, he was Director of Pharmacology and Toxicology lab at Beijing Institute for Drug Control of SFDA. He had been involved in many new drug development projects and IND & NDA application reviewing processes.

He received Medical Degree and MPH from Shanxi Medical University and MBA from Rutgers University in Pharmaceutical Management. Dr. Qi is also a certified Six Sigma Green Belt.

Scientific management  InVitro Discovery

Jiping Zha, MD/Ph.D., Vice President, Cancer Biology, Integrated Drug Discovery & Development Service Business Unit

Dr. Zha is a physician scientist with 18 years of extensive and in-depth experience in cancer biology. He received Howard Temin Award from National Cancer Institute in 1999 and used to be an instructor and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, respectively. He has 28 publications in high-impact scientific journals, such as Cell, Science and Nature, and 4 pending patent applications. He joined Genentech as a scientist in 2003, and led a therapeutic antibody program from its inception to IND filing and clinical testing. In addition, he played key roles in the development of multiple biomarker programs, one of which has enabled the success of a recent PhII trial for a targeted therapy in non-small cell lung cancer. Dr. Zha is a licensed physician in the State of California and board-certified in Anatomic Pathology.

Scientific management   Translational Oncology Division

Taping Chen DVM  Ph.D.,    Vice President,

Dr. Taiping Chen DVM, Ph.D has 28 years of experience in medical research.  Prior to joining Crown, he was the leader to build a Biomarker Team at ArQule, a biotech company dedicated to the discovery and development of targeted anticancer therapeutics.  In combination with Phase I clinical biomarker strategy, ARQ-197 has been successfully moved to Phase II and current Phase III trials.  Before joining ArQule, he worked as associate director at Wood Hudson Cancer Research Lab (WHCRL) and worked on clinical biomarkers in conjunction with Lilly’s target validation team.  Dr. Chen had published several papers elucidating functional roles of TGF-beta receptor 1 in clinical tumor specimens and some of the germline variants were highlighted as NCI major findings.  He also published papers defining a tumor suppressor region on chromosome 16q, that was named as ‘Chen’s region’ in Cancer Research.  Dr. Chen had previous experience in infectious disease and immunology, vaccine development, and three years of experience of transmission electron microscopy.  Dr. Chen received his DVM equivalent in Veterinary School, Shanxi Agricultural University in China.  He received M.S. degree of Immunology at the National Control Center of Veterinary Medicine, Beijing, China.   Dr. Chen earned his Ph.D. in Cancer Genetics from University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and completed his postdoctoral research at Yale University School of Medicine.  Dr. Chen has authored more than 60 abstracts and publications.  His main interest is to apply various translational research platforms to better understand the drug activity, selectivity, and PK/PD and efficacy relationship.

Scientific management   Biologics

Michelle Xia, Ph.D. Senior Vice President, Biotherapeutics

Dr. Michelle Xia is Senior Vice President at Crown Bioscience, leading Biologics business unit and Pfizer-Crown Asian Cancer Research Center.  She is also President of Taicang-Crown Biopharmaceutical Analysis Center.  Prior to joining Crown Bioscience, Dr. Xia worked at PDL BioPharma (current Abbott Labs), one of the pioneer therapeutic antibody technology and drug development company, in San Francisco Bay Area, where she led CMC project teams and oversaw antibody drug substance and product process development / manufacturing, and FDA registration / IND enabling process.Prior to that Dr. Xia worked at CMC Process Development Department of Bayer HealthCare in Berkeley.  Her responsibilities included building the Pathogen Safety facility at Bayer and managing viral safety evaluation / purification process validation for manufacturing of Bayer biological product Kogenate.Dr. Xia began her biopharmaceutical career at AXY Pharmaceuticals company, which was acquired by Celera Genomics in 2001.  During the six years service with Celera, she played both scientific and managerial roles in various fields, as well as to involve and coordinate drug discovery programs from target validation through IND enabling.Dr. Xia received a B.S. in Biochemistry from Zhongshan University in China and earned her Ph.D in Molecular Biology and Microbiology from University of Newcastle in U.K.  She did her postdoctoral training and academic research at University of Glasgow in U.K. and University of Louisville in U.S.

Scientific management   Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease Division

Jim Wang Ph.D     VP, Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases Division

Dr. Wang started his career as a postdoctoral researcher in Boston University, later as an assistant professor in University of Tennessee at Memphis.  He has since worked in several major pharmas (GSK, Roche, Schering/Bayer AG) and a startup biotech (Arete).  He has been working in cardiovascular and metabolic research area with ~100 publications in research articles, invited reviewers, book chapters, and patent applications.