Chris Lu

Founder and CEO of Laekna Therapeutics

Committee Member

Chris Lu is the founder and CEO of Laekna Therapeutics, a biotech company specializing in drug discovery and development in cancer and liver diseases area. Prior to Laekna, Chris was a Venture Partner at Frontline BioVentures (now known as “6 Dimensions”), and was Executive Director at Novartis, where he led global liver disease drug discovery research and headed the drug discovery biology division at Novartis China (CNIBR).

While at Novartis China, Chris’s primary research focus was the development of innovative medicine for China’s prevalent diseases. He joined Novartis in 2003, starting as a Senior Research Investigator/Group Leader in a newly established NIBR in Cambridge, MA, US. He successfully initiated and led multiple LMW and biologics projects to clinical stages and achieved positive “proof of concept” results in patients. One example, the Bimagruma antibody discovered by Chris’s research team. Chris also played a major role in Novartis’ establishment of the new liver disease therapeutic area.

Before joining Novartis, Chris was a group leader at Wyeth working on diabetes, and a starting scientist at Ontogeny (currently Curis), where Chris contributed to the discovery of Vismodegib, a drug marketed by Genetech for basal cell carcinoma. Chris received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in molecular biology from Nankai University, and his Ph.D in Biochemistry from UNC at Chapel Hill with Dr. Gerhard Messiner. He completed his postdoctoral training with Dr. Mark Ptashne at Harvard University.