We have assembled a team of industry leaders with operational experience across the life sciences spectrum to build the next generation of great life sciences companies.
Legal
Human Resources
Finance
CMC
Research & Development
Operations
Business Development
IR & Communications
Sean Cao, PhD, MBA
Chief Executive Officer, Director
Prior to joining ABio-X, Sean was a Managing Director of CBC Group, co-founded and served as the CEO of Everest Medicines and was the VP of Global Business Development at Simcere Pharmaceutical Group. Sean was also the President and Board Director at Simcere America, a wholly owned subsidiary. Previously, Sean was the Senior Director of Alternative Partnerships, Evaluation & Expertise at Sanofi. Before Sanofi, Sean was an Associate at New Leaf Venture Partners, a healthcare VC firm. Earlier in his career, Sean worked in the pharmaceutical and diagnostic industries at Aventis and Johnson & Johnson. Sean currently serves as the Chairman of NiKang Therapeutics. He holds a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Virginia, an MBA with honor from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology from Nankai University, China.
Joanna Wu, PhD, JD
General Counsel
Joanna has practiced law since 2003, with an initial focus on patent and FDA regulatory matters and later in other areas including corporate and technology transactions. She began her career with Ropes & Gray in Boston, followed by in-house experience in various medical device and biotechnology companies. She received her JD from University of California, Berkeley with a Certificate in Law and Technology, and she was on the editorial boards of the California Law Review and Berkeley Technology Law Journal. As a registered U.S. patent attorney, Joanna also has a technical background with a PhD in physiology from the University of Virginia and conducted research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a recipient of the Alexander Hollaender Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Sean Fu, PhD, MBA
Operating Partner
Sean Fu is an experienced leader and proven entrepreneur. Sean was co-founder and CEO of RVAC Medicines, an mRNA company established in 2021, raised $170 million and successfully brought two COVID vaccines into clinical study.
Prior to founding RVAC, Sean was Group VP and head of International R&D of Luye Pharma, overseeing organizations in Boston, Princeton, Germany, Switzerland and Japan. He was also the founding CEO of GeneLeap, a Luye subsidiary company focusing on DNA and RNA therapeutics.
Previously, Sean worked at Merck & Co. for 15 years with increasing responsibilities covering R&D, business development, and finance. He managed the finances of a $300 million late-stage clinical portfolio and led the integration of global R&D network after the landmark $42 billion merger between Merck and Schering-Plough.
His numerous honors included Merck & Co’s highest award for R&D innovation—the Best Business Value Award (2005); The Ohio State University William Oxley Thompson Alumni Award (2006), College of Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award (2022) and the Materials Research Society (MRS) Gold Award for Research (2000).
Sean earned a PhD in materials science and engineering from the Ohio State University, and an MBA from Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania.
Tracy Yeo, PHD
Senior Director, Strategy & BD
Prior to joining ABio-X, Tracy was Senior Director of Strategy and Business Development at RVAC Medicines, an innovative mRNA company. Previously, Tracy served as Director of Consulting at ChinaBio Group, where she led more than 50 consulting projects assisting US and European companies to develop global and Asia-specific product development, partnership, and commercialization strategies. Tracy received her postdoctoral training at UCLA under Dr. Dale Bredesen and at UCSF under Dr. Frank Longo, and was a recipient of the NIH Shannon Director’s Award and a fellowship from the John Douglas French Alzheimer's Foundation. Tracy holds a BS from National Taiwan University and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from Mount Sinai School of Medicine/CUNY.
Kevin Chen
Director, Business Development
Prior to joining ABio-X and I-MAB US (NASDAQ: IMAB), Kevin was an investment Vice President of CBC Group. While at CBC Group, Kevin incubated and co-founded ENSEM Therapeutics, a pioneering AI/ML drug discovery company, and drove $1.33B ENSEM-BeOne (BeiGene) CDK2 inhibitor partnership deal and ~$75M series A and A+ financing. Prior to co-founding ENSEM, Kevin was an investor-operator of Everest Medicine (HKEX: 1952) and performed technical and commercial due diligence of Trodelvy® for ~$835M in-license deal with Immunomedics. While incubating ENSEM and Everest Medicine, Kevin also co-created and co-evolved R&D strategy of internal drug pipeline, working closely with and parallel trained by multiple US pharma R&D leaders, i.e. ex-Eli Lilly and ex-Agios veterans.
Prior to CBC Group, Kevin worked for ~5 years at multiple big pharma, including Roche and Pfizer-JV, and served as Product Manager for product launch & portfolio strategy creation. As the youngest member in the launch team at Roche, Kevin has developed launch strategy of lung cancer indication of >$7B blockbuster Avastin®.
Kevin earned a MS degree with a research focus on Cancer Pharmacology from NYU Grossman School of Medicine and BE degree in Bioengineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University. He was also trained by NAS Member Dr. Juli Feigon at UCLA and CAS Member Dr. Hualiang Jiang in the research area of structural and computational biochemistry. Kevin published a sum of five 1st- or co-1st-author research papers in the areas of cancer pharmacology and computation.
Eddy Frazier
Accounting Manager
Eddy began his career in the public accounting space at a medium sized Boston regional firm focusing on preparing tax returns as well as assurance services for clients ranging from mom-and-pop shops to large multi-million-dollar software companies. After leaving the public accounting field, he spent multiple years in the private equity funded SaaS industry focusing on general ledger accounting as well as driving process improvement. Prior to joining ABio-X, Eddy led the finance department for a concrete subcontractor. He is a Licensed CPA in the state of Massachusetts. Eddy received his Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and Finance and MBA in Accounting from Assumption University.
Karly (Jiayu) Liu
Analyst, Finance
Prior to joining ABio-X, Karly was a market analyst at a Boston-based law firm. Since joining ABio-X, Karly assists our member companies build their finance and procurement structures in the US. She also supports the audits and company financings. Karly received her Bachelor of Science in Economics and Business at Capital University of Economics and Business in China and graduated from Boston University with a Master of Science in Marketing Management.
Francesca Solitro
Human Resources Generalist
Francesca graduated from Bryant University in 2020 with a degree in Human Resources Management and Communications. She joins the ABio-X team from Sirtex Medical, where she spent 4.5 years in Human Resources, progressing to HR Generalist.
Tianze Tao
Business Analyst
Tianze has a MS degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from The University of Southern California and a BS degree in Clinical Nutrition from UC Davis. He was inspired to pursue a career in pharmaceuticals and life sciences after the emergence of COVID-19, striving to deliver cutting edge therapeutics to patients in need. Prior to working at ABio-X, Tianze was an intern at CBC Group where he was responsible for conducting competitive intelligence research as well as financial analyses.
Terry Ying
IT Manager
Terry has more than 15 years of IT experience in large multinational companies. Previously, he was the Senior Infrastructure Engineer at LVMH Perfumes & Cosmetics (Shanghai) and has held roles of increasing responsibility at Water Technologies, Bosch, Matson Navigation, FedEx, and HSBC. Terry graduated from Shanghai Normal University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Information and Science.