Zhaokui Wan

Dr. Wan is currently the Head of Chemistry and a member of leadership team at Johnson & Johnson’s Asian Pacific Discovery Center in Shanghai. He is responsible for the chemistry functions and related cross function collaborations to support small molecule programs in the areas of oncology and infectious diseases.

Dr. Wan holds a master’s degree from University of Science and Technology of China, a Ph.D. degree from Boston University. He conducted a postdoctoral research at Harvard University where he discovered the sulfonamide-based asymmetric Nozaki-Hiyama-Kishi reaction, and contributed to the development of Eribulin that is now approved for the treatment of breast cancer and sarcoma under the name of HalavenTM with annual sales of hundreds of million dollars. He then joined Wyeth (now Pfizer) where he worked for a dozen years and served as a group and project leader as well as an advisor for postdoctoral fellows.

Dr. Wan has research experiences in multiple therapeutic areas, including inflammation, immunology, oncology, virology as well as cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. He made significant contributions to the development of a number of clinical and preclinical candidates. He also developed a novel and efficient phosphonium-mediated and related bond forming reactions in heterocyclic systems arising from a serendipitous observation.

Dr. Wan has more than 70 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals, patents and meeting abstracts. He is an ad hoc reviewer for a dozen prestigious scientific journals. Dr. Wan is a co-founder, a member of Board of Directors of Chinese BioMedical Association (CABA) and served as the President (2009- 2010).

Dr. Wan won a number of awards, including:
  • Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC)， the Royal Society of Chemistry （2015), UK;
  • Young Industrial Investigator，the American Chemistry Society (2008), USA,
  • Recently elected as a Chemistry in Cancer Research (CICR) Steering Committee member (2017 – 2018) at American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)