After spending eight years with Merck & Co., Inc. in the US as a senior researcher, Zhongru Gan felt he was ready to start something new. In 1994, Gan founded a small biotech, Gantech Pharma, in the US but the next year returned to China knowing there was an acute need for high-level life science researchers like himself.
The first thing he did upon returning was collaborate with his classmate from Peking University, Yikui Lee, then CEO of...