FUSION BioVenture is an incubation, innovation, and strategic investment platform of Fosun Pharma
Fosun Pharma US Innovation Hub (FUSION BioVenture) is an innovation center and incubation platform to advance breakthroughs for human health.
Founded in late 2018 and based in the Boston area, FUSION has incubated and launched Archimmune Therapeutics Inc. and Leverna Therapeutics Inc., as well as licensed in two innovative programs.
Create value by incubating and investing in early-stage cutting-edge platforms and technologies
Archimmune Therapeutics was founded in 2019 by FUSION BioVenture of Fosun Pharma. Archimmune is an immuno-oncology platform company focusing on developing nanoparticle-based personalized cancer vaccines (ACNP) and multi-functional immunotherapeutics (MINP) including bispecific T-cell activators (DINP) and trispecific NK engagers (nano-TriNKE).
Leverna Therapeutics is a newco incubated by FUSION BioVenture of Fosun Pharma, with the goal of establishing a powerful RNA-targeting company. The company will be able to “drug the undruggable” by designing antisense oligos and small molecules to modify mRNA regulation. Launched in early 2022, it has a core scientific team made up of RNA biologists and plans to employ AI to help with target discovery and therapeutic design. The company currently has two programs, one for neurodegenerative disease and the other for metabolic disease.
2021-02 FUSION established partnership with Revere Pharmaceuticals to develop RAC1 small molecule inhibitor for oncology.
2022-05 FUSION established partnership with VerImmune to develop VLP-based therapeutics product in Immuno-Oncology
FUSION BioVenture
1 Hartwell Place, Suite 305
Lexington, MA 02421
Email: fusion@fosunpharma.com
104 Carnegie Center Drive, Suite 204
Princeton, NJ 08540
(609) 250-2802
info.usa@fosunpharma.com
Customer Service: (833) 291-9645
Adverse Event/ Quality Concern: (866) 611-376202
© 2022 Fosun Pharma USA Inc. All rights reserved.
Dr. Lijun Wu is the Chief Scientific Officer and Founder, Head of FUSION BioVenture. She founded FUSION, Fosun Pharma’s innovation incubation platform in the US, which incubated andlaunched Archimmune Therapeutics and Leverna Therapeutics, where she is the Chair of the Board. She is also the acting CEO of Leverna. Prior to joining Fosun Pharma in 2018, she was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Atlas Venture and Senior Vice President of Preclinical and Clinical Development at Delinia. Prior to that, Dr. Wu held various senior leadership positions including Concert Pharmaceuticals (VP), Resolvyx Pharmaceuticals (VP), Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (Executive Director), and Millennium Pharmaceuticals (Director).
Dr. Wu is a seasoned executive with >25-years of experience in R&D, investment, and BD in startups established biotech, and large pharmaceutical companies in the US and across borders. She is an author of ~70 peer-reviewed publications, an inventor on a number of patents, and the recipient of Massachusetts High Tech’s “Women to Watch” award. She has been serving on the advisory council of IBBS/Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and is a member of JHU’s Society of Scholars.
Dr. Wu received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology from Northwestern University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Dr. Lijun Wu is the Chief Scientific Officer and Founder, Head of FUSION BioVenture. She founded FUSION, Fosun Pharma’s innovation incubation platform in the US, which incubated andlaunched Archimmune Therapeutics and Leverna Therapeutics, where she is the Chair of the Board. She is also the acting CEO of Leverna. Prior to joining Fosun Pharma in 2018, she was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Atlas Venture and Senior Vice President of Preclinical and Clinical Development at Delinia. Prior to that, Dr. Wu held various senior leadership positions including Concert Pharmaceuticals (VP), Resolvyx Pharmaceuticals (VP), Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (Executive Director), and Millennium Pharmaceuticals (Director).
Dr. Wu is a seasoned executive with >25-years of experience in R&D, investment, and BD in startups established biotech, and large pharmaceutical companies in the US and across borders. She is an author of ~70 peer-reviewed publications, an inventor on a number of patents, and the recipient of Massachusetts High Tech’s “Women to Watch” award. She has been serving on the advisory council of IBBS/Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and is a member of JHU’s Society of Scholars.
Dr. Wu received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology from Northwestern University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Dr. Linping Zhang is the SVP of Early Development for FUSION BioVenture, responsible for driving the R&D strategic planning and effective execution for FUSION BioVenture and its portfolio companies. Linping brings over twenty years of experience with biotech, pharma, and venture capital companies in driving R&D strategies, leading early development and clinical translation, conducting due diligence and in-/out-licensing in the field of oncology, ophthalmology, autoimmune and infectious diseases.
Dr. Zhang previously served as Venture Partner at 6 Dimensions Capital with major responsibility of leading clinical-stage newco incubation and launch in the immune-oncology space. Prior to that, Dr. Zhang was Executive Director and Head of Translational Sciences at BioMed Valley Discoveries, where she led and oversaw multiple cancer immunotherapy programs from IND-enabling to phase 2 clinical studies. She joined BioMed Valley from Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR), where she was responsible for portfolio and program management and leading multiple global cross-functional teams to advance an array of biologics and small molecule products from late research to Ph2 development for ophthalmic and oncology indications.
Dr. Zhang started her industry career at Infinity Pharmaceuticals as a founding scientist and project leader where she was instrumental in transforming the chemistry platform developed in her postdoc research lab at Harvard Medical School into the industry scale. She holds a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University at Buffalo, an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and received a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Tianjin University in China.Dr. Lawrence Brown serves as Associate General Counsel, Head of Legal (Fusion BioVenture) with responsibility for all aspects of the business unit’s legal affairs. He has over 20 years of experience providing advice and shaping strategies relevant to all aspects of intellectual property, litigation, commercial transactional, commercial risk, pharmaceutical regulatory, and pharmaceutical antitrust issues. Prior to joining Fusion, Larry served as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, IP – Generics at Endo International/Par Pharmaceutical for 15 years. Before his years in-house, Larry had worked in IP litigation, IP prosecution, and biotechnology/pharmaceutical transactions at law firms in both New York City and Boston. Further, prior to his career transition to law, Larry was a postdoctoral fellow in the Biomedical Engineering Department of Boston University, continuing at that institution his graduate work in computational biophysics and molecular modeling, with a focus on protein-nucleic acid/protein-protein free energy computations, docking, molecular mechanics, and threading.
Dr. Brown holds an A.B. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University, a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Princeton University, and a J.D. from the Fordham University School of Law. He is admitted to the bar in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts as well as the United States Patent and Trademark Office, U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Given his scientific and legal backgrounds, Larry enjoys being at the intersection of the two, asking the “what ifs” and “why nots”, questions that are salient to Fusion’s pursuits on the cutting edge of new biotechnological solutions.Dr. Yulian Zhang joined FUSION BioVentures as Executive director of Chemistry, Search & Evaluation in Feb 2021. She focuses on license-in and NewCo creation. Dr. Zhang is a highly accomplished leader with >20 years of experience across R&D and business development. Her significant expertise in medicinal chemistry resulted in 2 FDA-approved drugs and 3 in clinical trials. She worked at both large pharma and small biotech, including Kelun, Actinium, Blueprint Medicines, Lexicon, Vertex, and GSK. Dr. Zhang is an author of 15 papers & 2 book chapters and an inventor of 15 patents.
Dr. Zhang received her BS in Chemistry from Jilin University, Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Temple University, and MBA from Stern Business School at New York University.Dr. Wenwen Sha joined FUSION BioVenture in April 2022 as the Director of Biology. At FUSION, she is responsible to incubate novel platforms, building ideas into newcos, and license in cutting-edge preclinical platforms/assets for Fosun Pharma. Prior to joining FUSION, she was a Lab Head/Principal Scientist at Sanofi. Dr. Sha has extensive experience in antibody drug discovery in Immuno-Oncology, including drug discovery, target validation, and pre-IND/IND filing, with a track of record of delivering HER2/CD28xCD3 tri-specific antibodies to phase I clinic.
Dr. Sha received Ph.D. in immunology and virology from the Institute Pasteur of Shanghai, and as an exchange visitor at Baylor Institute for Immunology Research during her Ph.D. training. After graduation, she conducted her postdoctoral research in AstraZeneca/Medimmune and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.Kadia Ouellette joined FUSION in 2022 as the Director of Research Operations, bringing significant experience as a project leader and scientific operations driver in the drug development and biotechnology industry.
Mrs. Ouellette has worked in the life science industry from small startups to large global conglomerates. She started her work as a bench scientist at GreenLight Biosciences where she transitioned into operations developing her curiosity, project management, and problem-solving skills to streamline and support scientific activities. These skills were further developed at Biogen, Amgen, and Agilent Technologies. At these companies, Kadia served as a consultant and project leader to many multimillion-dollar global transformative projects supporting research, development, pilot, and clinical teams.
Mrs. Ouellette holds an MEng in Chemical Engineering and an MSc in Biochemistry both from the University of Waterloo, and a BS in Chemistry from Howard University.
Dr. William Mann is the CEO of Archimmune Therapeutics. Previously, he was the President and COO of NeuBase Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: NBSE), where he led the company’s business development, CMC, and project management functions and supported the overall advancement of its R&D programs. Prior to Neubase, Dr. Mann served as the President, CEO and board member of Helsinn Therapeutics U.S., where he led the company’s transformation from an R&D-focused organization into a fully integrated and profitable commercial entity with a portfolio that included Aloxi®, Zykadia® and Halaven®. Prior to Helsinn, Dr. Mann was Vice President of corporate development at Sapphire Therapeutics, Inc., where he led the licensing of anamorelin to Ono Pharmaceutical Co. and was instrumental in the sale of the company to Helsinn Healthcare SA. Concurrently, he managed the company’s international Phase 2B study of anamorelin, which is approved in Japan for the treatment of cancer cachexia under the brand name, Adlumiz®.
Dr. Mann began his career at Novartis, where he led a multidisciplinary drug discovery program and later served as director of business development. He received both a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, pursued postdoctoral studies at Rockefeller University, and went on to obtain an MBA from Rutgers University.
Dr. Dapeng Qian is currently Chief Scientific Officer at Archimmune Therapeutics. Prior to joining Archimmune Therapeutics in July 2020, Dr. Qian was Managing Director at NVT Biopharma Consulting since 2015. At NVT, he provided consulting services to biopharmaceutical, healthcare service, and VC/PE investment companies in business strategy, business development, biopharmaceutical R&D, financing and investment, and helped his clients successfully close transactions worth more than US$400 million.
From 1997-2015, Dr. Qian held leadership positions with increasing responsibilities at several pharmaceutical and investment companies. He was Senior Group Leader, Research at Pharmacia/SUGEN (acquired by Pfizer); Senior Director, Discovery Biology at CGI Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Gilead); Executive Director, Discovery Biology at Progenics Pharmaceuticals; Venture Partner at Cenova Capital; and CEO of Huapu Bio, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company.
Dr. Qian led and contributed to the advancement of ~30 innovative drug discovery and development programs (antibody, antibody-drug conjugate, protein vaccine, small-molecule, and oligonucleotide) across multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, infectious disease, and autoimmune disease, with multiple drugs advanced to Phase 2 clinical development.
Dr. Qian received an MD from Peking University Health Science Center, and a PhD in immunology from the University of Chicago, and conducted postdoctoral research in immunology at UCSF.Sonke Svenson joined Archimmune Therapeutics in 2022 as Executive Director, Chemistry, bringing significant experience in nanoparticle technology applied to the biotechnology industry.
Dr. Svenson has 20 years of experience in the biotechnology industry with roles of increasing responsibility. His professional achievements include the development of scalable particle engineering techniques to improve the solubility of drugs (BioAqueousSM Solubilization, The Dow Chemical Company, 2000) and the development of a novel dendrimer platform with improved performance and cost profile (Dendritic Nanotechnologies, 2003). He built and led teams developing polymer-drug, polymer-siRNA, and polymer-peptide conjugates with controlled release kinetics (Cerulean Pharma, 2008); developed high throughput protocols for RNA delivery (Preceres LLC, 2013); and formulations for RNA species-specific treatments (GreenLight Biosciences, 2016). In 2017, Dr. Svenson became the Managing Director for NanoCarrier Co., Ltd., Japan, building business relations to pharma and biotech companies in the US and EU. Dr. Svenson is the founder of Drug Delivery Solutions LLC. Prior to joining Archimmune, Dr. Svenson was leading the development of exosomes for the delivery of active ingredients at Invaio Sciences.
Dr. Svenson holds a Ph.D. (summa cum laude) in Organic Chemistry from the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. He held postdoctoral positions at Purdue, Northwestern, and Princeton Universities, focusing on the synthesis and self-assembly of lipids and polymers for biomedical applications. Dr. Svenson has organized multiple international symposia, including four sponsored by the American Chemical Society, ACS with a focus on drug delivery, and two symposia on cancer nanotechnology at annual meetings of the Materials Research Society, MRS. He is the editor of four books on drug delivery, nanomedicine, and multifunctional nanoparticles. He has (co)authored 37 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, and given 45 oral and poster presentations, including 26 invited/keynote presentations. Dr. Svenson is a co-inventor on 14 patents/patent applications in drug delivery and particle engineering.
Dr. Hong Ren joined Archimmune Therapeutics in June 2022 as Head of Pharmacology, responsible for preclinical pharmacology and translational research studies in support of Archimmune’s nanoparticle-based immunotherapeutics development.
Prior to joining Archimmune, Dr. Ren served as the Program Lead for multiple therapeutic antibody programs at Bluefin Biomedicine and Dynamicure Biotechnology, including antibody-drug conjugate and immune checkpoint inhibitors. She has over 15 years of experience in antibody drug discovery from concept to IND-enabling studies, focusing on preclinical biology and MOA studies for drug candidates in oncology and immuno-oncology.
Dr. Ren received a BS in Biology from Wuhan University and a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. She conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Klaus Rajewsky.
Dr. Qinghong Yan obtained her PhD in Neuroscience at Stony Brook University and completed her postdoctoral research at Columbia University. She joined Fosun Pharma USA in 2020 as the Head of Biology at FUSION BioVenture and led license-in of preclinical assets and incubation of Leverna Therapeutics. She is currently the co-founder and CSO of Leverna Therapeutics, leading a team of RNA biologists in designing RNA-targeted therapeutics and developing innovative drugs for curing diseases with unmet medical needs.
Before joining FUSION, Dr. Yan was leading a molecular and cell biology team at Amgen, responsible for in vitro toxicology of siRNA, CAR T, TCR T and PROTAC programs and supported over 15 projects with 5 IND filings. She also led functional genomics projects and cutting-edge human-based disease model development including the development of organoid/tissue-chip models, iPSC-derived cell models, CRIPSR gene editing/genome screening, single-cell sequencing, etc…
Dr. Yan is co-founder and president of BioSpark Group, a non-profit organization based in the Boston area, focusing on establishing a biotechnology ecosystem with a collaborative and supportive scholar network, promoting leadership and entrepreneurship, and facilitating the translation of scientific discoveries in life sciences.
