Hung Zai Pharma

[Jennifer Leos]

Dr. Hung focuses on airway management, clinical pharmacology and drug delivery systems. Through collaborations with other clinicians and scientists at Dalhousie, Stanford, and the University of Toronto, Dr. Hung has developed and patented a number of innovative drug delivery systems and medical devices.

I-hung Shih received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Duke in 2000 and has built a diverse set of skills and experiences after graduation. Following a research fellowship at NIH and a postdoc at MIT, she began a role as a Research Scientist at Gilead Science, Inc., where she was promoted to Senior Manager in 2009. During that time, she completed her M.B.A at The Wharton School. In 2011, she pivoted to a career in investment banking as an Associate with Credit Suisse, then worked as an Investment Professional with Temasek, a Biotech Global Analyst with T. Rowe Price, and began working at Wellington Management as a Biotech Analyst in 2018 before being promoted to her current role in 2021. Currently, she is Head of Biomedical Innovation, a private equity fund at Wellington Management.

I grew up in Taiwan, finished my undergraduate degree in Chemistry at National Taiwan University, and came to Duke in 1995. At that time, ribozyme was just discovered, and I started to become interested in RNA biochemistry. So, I joined the lab of Professor Michael Been studying the catalytic mechanism of HDV ribozyme. I still remember that I really enjoyed doing experiments when I was at Duke, and eventually we were very lucky to make a breakthrough discovery.

Initially, I thought that I might not be good enough for academic research, so I was planning to go to industry. Then in my fourth year at Duke, our lab made a scientific breakthrough and published a paper in the journal Science. At that moment, I started to be more confident about myself in research, so I decided to stay in academia and spent five years as a postdoc at NIH first and then the Whitehead Institute later.

After more than ten years of training and a handful of offers of assistant professorships, I realized that a career in academic research as a professor may not be the path for me, and I began looking for opportunities in the biopharma industry. I interviewed at a handful of biopharmaceutical companies, both large-cap pharma and mid-cap biotech companies. Gilead Sciences stood out as a place where making medicine was front and center for the scientists there, which really piqued my interest. At Gilead, I was working on drug discovery for hepatitis C, and gradually I learned that advancing medicine is my passion and calling. I found it especially rewarding because I was helping patients fight disease. I would say my decision to join Gilead was probably the most exciting transition in my career. It was especially rewarding that after a multi-year effort, the drug candidate I worked on became a blockbuster medicine that cured millions of hepatitis C patients.

My current job focuses on private biotech investment from series A to crossover. My daily work includes meeting management teams, learning about their companies, digging into data from preclinical and clinical studies as part of the due diligence process and working with my team to make the final investment decisions. I still read scientific and medical journals broadly and discuss with brilliant scientists and physicians to keep abreast of cutting-edge biomedical discoveries or technologies. I am really blessed to have my dream job.

Jennifer Cheng is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Biochemistry in the School of Medicine. She studies the structure and function of proteins in the laboratory of Dr. Pei Zhou. Jennifer enjoys the basic research in drug discovery and development and is actively exploring different career options to make her contribution in the medical field. Follow her on Twitter.

Dr. Hanley joined Nuvation Bio in 2021, bringing 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience driving strategy for technical operations and chemistry manufacturing and controls (CMC), including virtual networks, for drug development, manufacturing and distribution in the U.S. and worldwide. He holds diverse disease expertise, including oncology, central nervous system (CNS) and autoimmune, and product types, including biologics, small molecule therapies, cell therapies and synthetic peptide products.

Dr. Hanley most recently served as Senior Vice President and Head of Global Pharmaceutical Development and Operations at BioXcel Therapeutics, where he led strategy and execution for CMC development, end-to-end supply chain and external supply manufacturing. Prior, Dr. Hanley held positions at Radius Health, Inc., including Vice President of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technical Operations. There, he led the end-to-end supply chain, including for CMC development, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) New Drug Application (NDA) and FDA-approved product launch. Dr. Hanley also held leadership positions at The Medicines Company, including Senior Director of Global Pharmaceutical Development, and project management and scientific positions at Medarex and Berlex, a subsidiary of Schering AG, at the start of his career.

Dr. Liu joined Nuvation Bio in 2022 with over 20 years of experience leading the discovery and development of oncology therapies, including NDA submissions for multiple oncology assets in the U.S., Europe, and China. Most recently, Dr. Liu served as the Chief Medical Officer at a biotechnology company based in Shanghai, China. There, he built and led their clinical R&D organization, including global clinical research, global clinical operations, pharmacovigilance, biostatistics, programming and data management, clinical pharmacology, and drug supply.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Liu held several roles of increasing strategic responsibility at Bristol Myers Squibb, where he became a leader in Oncology Global Clinical Research, including leading the Global Prostate Cancer Program, Pediatric Clinical Development, and Translational Research for ipilimumab, and development of nivolumab and ipilimumab for China. After Bristol Myers Squibb, Dr. Liu was the Global Lead Physician at Celgene for the revlimid plus rituximab submission program in indolent lymphoma. Dr. Liu earned a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.S. from the University of Toledo, and an M.D. from Beijing Medical University (Peking University School of Medicine).

Ms. Sjogren joined Nuvation Bio in 2024, bringing nearly 30 years of experience developing innovative, high-performing commercial organizations for successful product launches, including many leading oncology medicines.

Ms. Wentworth joined Nuvation Bio in 2022 with over 25 years of experience in both domestic and international Regulatory and Quality Affairs. Her background spans early and late development across multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, osteoarthritis, pain management, autoimmune and rare diseases. She also comes to Nuvation Bio with a broad scope of product knowledge ranging from injectable small molecules to complex autologous platforms.

A historic multibillion-dollar settlement with OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma hung in the balance at the Supreme Court on Monday as victims of the nation's opioid epidemic urged the justices to approve the deal over opposition from the Biden administration, which warned it would let the company's owners -- the Sackler family -- evade greater financial responsibility.

During oral argument in the case, Harrington v. Purdue Pharma, most of the justices appeared inclined to uphold the arrangement, which was forged after years of painstaking negotiations as part of the drugmaker's bankruptcy proceedings and is endorsed by a large majority of victims.

Under the deal, the Sacklers would provide roughly $6 billion to redress harm from opioid addiction and related deaths and give up ownership of the company -- a sum that would be paid out to 138,000 individual victims, state governments and Native American tribes over a number of years.

In exchange, the family -- which has not declared bankruptcy itself -- would receive immunity from all future opioid-related lawsuits and retain billions in past profits earned from sales of the drug.

More than 80,000 Americans have suffered opioid-related deaths since OxyContin and similar painkillers hit the market in 1996. Purdue's aggressive marketing and disregard for addiction concerns played a major role in the rise of the epidemic, according to public health experts and several legal findings.

\"Let me be crystal clear,\" said attorney Pratik Shah, who was defending the deal on behalf of the supportive victims. \"Without the release [of liability for the Sacklers], the plan will unravel, Chapter 7 liquidation will follow, and there will be no viable path to any victim recovery.\"

A federal district court blocked the plan, saying federal law did not allow such a sweeping legal shield for the Sacklers without unanimous consent of all the claimants. A federal appeals court later reversed that ruling, saying the plan could go forward because of leeway in the law.

Deputy Solicitor General Curtis Gannon said there could be a better deal in the making for victims, arguing that immunity for the Sacklers \"conflicts with the basic nuts and bolts\" of bankruptcy law.

\"It permits the Sacklers to decide how much they're going to contribute. It grants the Sacklers the functional equivalent of a discharge, what they might get if they themselves were in bankruptcy,\" Gannon said. \"It raises significant constitutional questions that should be avoided in the absence of a clear command from Congress.\"

\"We don't normally say that a nonconsenting party can have its claim for property eliminated in this fashion without consent or any process of court other than the procedure here,\" said Justice Neil Gorsuch. \"This would defy what we do in class-action contexts. It would raise serious due process concerns and seventh amendment concerns.\"

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