Beijing China, July 05, 2016 -- CANbridge Life Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing Western drug candidates in China and North Asia, has appointed Huaizhong Hu, MD, PhD, as Vice President of Preclinical Development, to take effect immediately.

Dr. Hu brings to CANbridge nearly 30 years of combined experience in industry, academia and clinical medicine. He was most recently with Covance Laboratory Inc. where he spent 10 years and held senior scientific positions as Toxicology Senior Study Director, Immuno-toxicology Lead Scientist at Covance U.S. and Early Development Scientific Director at Covance China. During his tenure at Covance, Dr. Hu led or supervised over 200 GLP/non-GLP toxicology or immune-toxicology studies. Between 2000-2007, Dr. Hu was R&D Director at Renorvar Inc. where he led the team and effort that developed biomarkers and diagnostic tests for immunological diseases. Prior to that he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in immunology and toxicology at the NIH where he successfully cloned and functionally evaluated a recombinant immunotoxin that has been developed and tested in a Phase II clinical trial for skin T cell lymphoma.  Dr. Hu was a Lee Kuan Yew Research Fellow and principal investigator at Department of Microbiology and Faculty of Medicine at National University of Singapore. Prior to pursuing his scientific career in the West, Dr. Hu practiced medicine for 3 years in Clinical Immunology at the First Affiliated Hospital of West China University of Medical Sciences. Dr. Hu holds a PhD in T cell immunology from Utrecht University. He received his Medical Degree from West China University of Medical Sciences. He co-authored over 50 publications in peer-reviewed international journals and is an inventor on close to 20 U.S., European and Chinese issued or pending patents.

“Dr. Hu built an impressive track record in global drug research and development over his nearly three decades of stellar career,” said James Xue, CANbridge founder and CEO. “He brings to us a rare combination of in-depth experience and skill sets in immunology, toxicology and assay development across industry, academia and clinical medicine. We are thrilled to welcome Huaizhong to the CANbridge team, where he will develop and implement CANbridge’s preclinical program for our oncology pipeline.”

About CANbridge Life Sciences

CANbridge Life Sciences, Ltd. is a bio-pharmaceutical company accelerating development and commercialization of specialty healthcare products for serious and critical medical conditions in China and North Asia (Korea and Taiwan).  CANbridge develops partnerships with Western bio-pharmaceutical companies with clinical-stage pharmaceutical, medical device or diagnostic products that are either unavailable in China/North Asia or address medical needs that are underserved in the region. CANbridge also licenses, or obtains exclusive rights to commercialize, drug and device products that are approved in their home markets for commercialization in China and North Asia.  CANbridge has an agreement with EUSA Pharma, to commercialize Caphosol® in China for the prevention and treatment of oral mucositis caused by cancer treatments, and a license with Apogenix to develop, manufacture and commercialize immune-oncology therapy, APG101, for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme in China, Macao, Hong Kong and Taiwan, where it will be developed as CAN008, and a world-wide license (ex-North America) with AVEO Oncology to develop, manufacture and commercialize clinical-stage ErbB3 (HER3) inhibitory antibody candidate AV-203 that renamed by CANbridge as CAN017.  

Led and backed by a highly-seasoned executive team, with extensive Chinese drug development experience, CANbridge has the capability to select, acquire, develop and commercialize future therapeutics and diagnostics targeting the unmet medical needs of Chinese and East Asian patients with serious or critical conditions.  

CANbridge is privately-held and headquartered in Beijing, China.  For more on CANbridge Life Sciences, please go to www.canbridgepharma.com.