Jian Shao

Jian Shao is currently the founder and CEO of Sword Therapeutics, a startup developing a cure for patients suffering from chronic hepatitis B infection.  

Jian was a medicinal chemist at Novartis in 2004-2013 and took leadership positions in Drug Discovery programs managing both internal and external resources. In 2014, Jian worked at Biogen’s Corporate Strategy department, developing comprehensive commercial assessment on rare diseases. In 2015, Jian joined Azimuth Ventures as a venture partner, focusing on sourcing and evaluating new opportunities as well as assessing potential for global markets expansion for existing portfolio companies. In 2015-2016, Jian was the CEO and co-founder of Precidiag, Inc., a venture-backed precision medicine company. 

Jian received his B.S. degree in Chemistry from Fudan University (China), M.A. in Chemistry from Boston University, A.L.M. from Harvard University and M.B.A. from Yale School of Management.