Join­ing hunt for hep B cure, Brii Bio inks maid­en deals fea­tur­ing VBI, Vir, WuXi with a big ap­petite for more

This May, Zhi Hong de­buted the ul­tra-con­nect­ed trans-Pa­cif­ic up­start Brii Bio to bridge a gap in in­no­va­tion be­tween the US and Chi­na. Sev­en months in, he’s us­ing some of those con­nec­tions to in-li­cense two po­ten­tial cures for he­pati­tis B, en­ter an­oth­er dis­cov­ery col­lab­o­ra­tion and build a new glob­al head­quar­ters, kick­start­ing a quest to “cre­ate a new ground for in­fec­tious dis­eases.”

And with plen­ty of his $260 mil­lion launch fund still in the bank, the CEO al­ready has his eyes set on more part­ner­ships — all co­or­di­nat­ed from a new R&D hub be­ing built in Bei­jing, which will even­tu­al­ly be able to house up to 200 em­ploy­ees, as well as small­er out­posts across Shang­hai, San Fran­cis­co and Hong’s home base of Durham, North Car­oli­na.

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