Chris Lu is founder, Chairman and CEO of Laekna Therapeutics, an emerging innovative pharma company based in China’s “Zhangjiang Pharma Valley” and New Jersey in US, focusing on developing new ground-breaking innovative therapies to treat cancer and liver diseases.

Prior to Laekna, Chris was Executive Director at Novartis, where he led global liver disease drug discovery research and headed the drug discovery biology division at Novartis China. He was previously a Venture Partner at Frontline BioVentures, which invests in companies that are developing today’s leading-edge healthcare solutions.

Chris was one of the first scientists to join the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR). After working at Novartis R&D headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA for 4 years, he returned to China in 2007 to help establish Novartis Shanghai R&D Center. During his 13-year tenure at Novartis, Chris led the R&D teams to complete more than 20 new drug research projects and successfully in the clinical trials. Chris led the efforts for over 10 new drug patents, granted by US FDA- an anti-aging regenerative antibody Bimagrumab.

Before joining Novartis, Chris was a group leader at Wyeth (currently Pfizer) working on metabolic diseases, and a starting scientist at Ontogeny (currently Curis) working on regenerative medicines. Chris received his BS/MS from Nankai University, Ph.D. from UNC at Chapel Hill, and completed postdoctoral training at Harvard University.