Leadership Team
Management Team
Board of Directors
Clinical Advisory Board
Allen S. Lichter, MD
Chairman, Clinical advisory board
Former President of ASCO
Former CEO of ASCO
Dr. Jedd Wolchok
Meyer Director of the Sandra
Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine
Paul A. Bunn, MD
James Dudley Prof. of Lung Cancer Research at CU Medicine
Former President of ASCO
Arul Chinnaiyan, MD, PhD
Prof. of Pathology and Urology at the UMich
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Dr. Hagop M. Kantarjian
Prof. and Chair of the Dept of Leukemia, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Dr. Dajun Yang
Chairman of the Board, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer
Dajun Yang, Ph.D., is the Co-Founder, Chairman of the Board, and Chief Executive Officer of Ascentage Pharma. Dr. Yang has dedicated his career to the research on apoptosis and innovative drug R&D for nearly 30 years. In 2009, he co-founded Ascentage Pharma and made major breakthroughs in the research of development of precision drugs targeting apoptosis and autophagy dual-channel regulation. Ascentage Pharma is the only company in the world that researches and develops innovative drugs targeting all of these pathways. Ascentage Pharma currently has eight potential “First-in-class†or “Best-in-class†innovative drug candidates in Phase I/II clinical developments in China, the United States and Australia. Dr. Yang has undertaken nearly ten National Science and Technology Major Projects such as the National High-tech R&D Program (the “863 Programâ€) and the Major Innovative Drug Developments program. The team led by Dr. Yang has won multiple awards such as the Major Innovation Team of Suzhou and Jiangsu, the First Jiangsu Innovation Competition Team Award, and the R&D Achievement of the Year 2017 from the BayHelix Group. Dr. Yang is the recipient of the 2018 “Dushu Lake Prize†for the Most Influential Leader in Drug R&D， an award widely recognized in the field drug R&D. Dr. Yang was the president of Chinese Biopharmaceutical Association-USA from 2005 to 2006 and has concurrently served as professor and Ph.D. supervisor at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, vice director of the Drug R&D Specialty Committee of China Pharmaceutical Innovation and Research Development Association, and part-time researcher in Pharmaceutical Innovations at Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Yang is the author or co-author of 92 publications and the inventor of 14 patents. He was a co-founder, chief staff writer and editor for two national magazines in China, namely “Chinese Medical Students†and “Family Doctorsâ€. Nowadays “Family Doctors†has a monthly publication volume of over one million and it has the mission to promote both healthcare and a healthy lifestyle in China.
Dr. Yifan Zhai
Chief Medical Officer
Yifan Zhai, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer, has over 25 years of experience in cancer research and new drug development. For position with other members of the Group, Dr. Zhai is the director of Healthquest Pharma. Dr. Zhai was a postdoctoral fellow at the surgery branch, National Cancer Institute between 1993 and 1996. She also served as a scientist at Human Genome Sciences Inc., now GSK, between 1996 and 1999; senior research scientist at Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corp. between 1999 and 2001; director of the department of pharmacology at Exelixis Inc. between 2001 and 2003; President of HealthQuest Inc. between 2003 and 2005; and chief scientific officer at Oncomax Acquisition Corp. between 2005 and 2007. Dr. Zhai served as executive director of Anaborex (Shanghai) R&D Co., Ltd. between 2007 and 2008. She joined Celladon Corporation as chief scientific officer in 2007 until 2010 and joined Healthquest Pharma as president and chief executive officer. Dr. Zhai was the president of Chinese Biopharmaceutical Association-USA from 2009 to 2010.
Dr. Zhai is the author of more than 27 academic papers. She obtained her Medicine degree (M.D.) from Sun Yat-sen University of Medical Sciences (now renamed as the Sun Yat-sen University), and received her Ph.D. degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from Michigan State University.
Mr. Jeffrey Raymond Kmetz
Chief Business Officer
Jeff Kmetz, our Chief Business Officer, has over 25 years of global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience. Throughout his career, Mr. Kmetz has held senior roles with increasing levels of responsibility in marketing, commercial and business development. Most recently, he served as Chief Business Officer at Pulse Biosciences, managing the Oncology development for the company’s Nano-Pulse Stimulation technology. Prior to that, he was Head of Commercial and Business Development along with Strategic Marketing at Pharmacyclics, where he was instrumental in formulating and executing the commercialization and life cycle management of best-in-class BTK inhibitor ibrutinib — the asset which prompted the company’s acquisition by AbbVie for $21 billion in 2015. Prior to that, Mr. Kmetz served as Director of U.S. Hematology Marketing at Alexion and led multiple initiatives in sales and marketing. Before Alexion, Mr. Kmetz was Hematology Business Unit Lead at Bayer, managing its hematology portfolio and brands. Mr. Kmetz holds a B.S. from Virginia Tech.
Mr. Thomas Joseph Knapp
Senior Vice President, General Counsel
Thomas J. Knapp is Senior Vice President, General Counsel of Ascentage Pharma. Mr. Knapp has over 30 years of corporate legal experience, with expertise in the biopharmaceutical sector. He earned his B.A. in Political Science and Business from the University of Illinois-Urbana and a J.D. from Loyola University School of Law.
In his most recent role as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Galena Biopharma, Inc., a publicly traded pharmaceutical company that merged with Sellas Life Sciences Group in 2017. There, Mr. Knapp was responsible for domestic and global legal matters, litigation, corporate governance and compliance and IP matters. Previously, Mr. Knapp was the Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Earlier in his career, he served as Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at NorthWestern Corporation, was Of Counsel at Paul Hastings and Exemplar Law Partners, LLC and held many legal leadership positions at The Boeing Company and The Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Company.
Mr. Yifei Zhu
Chief Commercial Officer
Graduated from the Zhejiang Medical University, Mr. Yifei Zhu is a pharmaceutical veteran with a wealth of experience in commercialization, having worked for more than 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry. Mr. Zhu held senior commercial leadership positions at Xi’an Janssen, BeiGene, Qilu Pharmaceutical, and I-Mab Biopharma, in a wide range of therapeutic areas that included oncology, immunotherapy, dermatology, infectious diseases, and central nervous system (CNS). Mr. Zhu also commands deep commercial expertise in the hematology field, having successfully led the commercialization in various hematologic indications such as multiple myeloma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. In addition, Mr. Zhu has a proven track record in building commercial organizations and executing commercialization strategies at both multinational and Chinese pharma and biotech companies.
Dr. Dajun Yang
Chairman of the Board, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer
Dajun Yang, Ph.D., is the Co-Founder, Chairman of the Board, and Chief Executive Officer of Ascentage Pharma. Dr. Yang has dedicated his career to the research on apoptosis and innovative drug R&D for nearly 30 years. In 2009, he co-founded Ascentage Pharma and made major breakthroughs in the research of development of precision drugs targeting apoptosis and autophagy dual-channel regulation. Ascentage Pharma is the only company in the world that researches and develops innovative drugs targeting all of these pathways. Ascentage Pharma currently has eight potential “First-in-class†or “Best-in-class†innovative drug candidates in Phase I/II clinical developments in China, the United States and Australia. Dr. Yang has undertaken nearly ten National Science and Technology Major Projects such as the National High-tech R&D Program (the “863 Programâ€) and the Major Innovative Drug Developments program. The team led by Dr. Yang has won multiple awards such as the Major Innovation Team of Suzhou and Jiangsu, the First Jiangsu Innovation Competition Team Award, and the R&D Achievement of the Year 2017 from the BayHelix Group. Dr. Yang is the recipient of the 2018 “Dushu Lake Prize†for the Most Influential Leader in Drug R&D， an award widely recognized in the field drug R&D. Dr. Yang was the president of Chinese Biopharmaceutical Association-USA from 2005 to 2006 and has concurrently served as professor and Ph.D. supervisor at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, vice director of the Drug R&D Specialty Committee of China Pharmaceutical Innovation and Research Development Association, and part-time researcher in Pharmaceutical Innovations at Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Yang is the author or co-author of 92 publications and the inventor of 14 patents. He was a co-founder, chief staff writer and editor for two national magazines in China, namely “Chinese Medical Students†and “Family Doctorsâ€. Nowadays “Family Doctors†has a monthly publication volume of over one million and it has the mission to promote both healthcare and a healthy lifestyle in China.
Allen S. Lichter, MD
Chairman, Clinical advisory board
Former President of ASCO
Former CEO of ASCO
Allen S. Lichter, MD, FASCO, served as the Chief Executive Officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation from years 2006 to 2016. He has been an ASCO member since 1980 and served the Society in a variety of volunteer capacities including President (1998-1999) and Founding Chair of the Conquer Cancer Foundation Board of Directors (1999), before accepting the position of CEO in 2006. In his 10 years as CEO, Dr. Lichter has overseen the rapid growth of the Society and the launch of important new initiatives to improve the quality and value of cancer care.
During Dr. Lichter’s tenure as CEO, ASCO reached more than 40,000 members, including more than 13,000 international members and many allied health professionals. His many significant contributions include the launch of CancerLinQ™, ASCO’s groundbreaking health information technology platform that harnesses big data from millions of patient records to deliver high-quality, personalized care to people with cancer and cancer survivors, and the Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) Study, the Society’s first-ever clinical trial that addresses gaps in the understanding of and access to targeted therapies; the creation of the Leadership Development Program to ensure strong leadership in oncology for future generations and FASCO designation for members with standout volunteer service; the hiring of the organization’s first Chief Medical Officer; and the establishment of several important new departments to support the diverse needs of ASCO members. Each of these accomplishments is a testament to Dr. Lichter’s commitment to improving the lives and meeting the needs of patients with cancer, their families, and their caregivers.
Prior to becoming the CEO of ASCO, Dr. Lichter held leadership roles at the University of Michigan, including Chair and Professor of Radiation Oncology (1984-1998) and Dean of the Medical School (1998-2006), and at the National Cancer Institute, including Director of the Radiation Therapy Section of the Radiation Oncology Branch. His research, focusing on better defining radiation doses to spare normal, healthy tissue in patients with cancer has contributed to radiation treatment planning standards around the world. In 2002, he was elected to be a member in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science. He has received Gold Medals from the American Society for Radiation Oncology and the Radiological Society of North America in recognition of his contributions to cancer research, education and clinical care, and leadership of his peers in clinical oncology.
The award given in his name “The Allen S. Lichter Visionary Leader Award” honors Dr. Lichter’s commitment and contributions to ASCO and will continue his legacy by encouraging and recognizing extraordinary leadership in oncology.
Shaomeng Wang, PhD
Chief Scientific Advisor and Director
Prof. of Medicine at UMich
Dr. Shaomeng Wang joined the faculty at the University of Michigan Medical School as a tenured Associate Professor in 2001 and was promoted to Professor in 2006. Dr. Wang was named the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor in Medicine in 2007. Dr. Wang serves as the Co-Director of the Molecular Therapeutics Program at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and is the Director of the Cancer Drug Discovery Program at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Wang is the Editor-in-Chief for Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, a premier international journal in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery by the American Chemical Society and serves on the editorial board for several international journals.
Dr. Shaomeng Wang has published 300+peer-reviewed papers and an inventor of 50+ issued US patents and hundreds of international patents. He was elected as Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in 2014 and as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2019, was induced into Hall of Fame of the Division of Medicinal Chemistry of American Chemical Society in 2020.
Dr. Wang was the 2014 University of Michigan Distinguished Innovator.
In addition to his academic role, Dr Wang is a co-founder of Ascenta Therapeutics and Ascentage Pharma, which were established to develop innovative anticancer medicines with technologies licensed mainly from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Jedd Wolchok
Meyer Director of the Sandra
Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine
Jedd Wolchok, MD, PhD, FASCO, is the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Wolchok was most recently Chief of the Immuno-Oncology Service and held The Lloyd J. Old Chair in Clinical Investigation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and remains Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Wolchok is a clinician-scientist exploring innovative immunotherapeutic strategies in laboratory models, and a principal investigator in numerous pivotal clinical trials. Dr. Wolchok helped establish immunotherapy as a standard approach to cancer treatment and was instrumental in the clinical development leading to the approval of ipilimumab and the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab for advanced melanoma. He supervises an NIH R01-funded basic science laboratory which is focused on investigating novel immunotherapeutic agents in pre-clinical laboratory models. The focus of his translational research laboratory is to investigate innovative means to modulate the immune response to cancer as well as to better understand the mechanistic basis for sensitivity and resistance to currently available immunotherapies. Dr. Wolchok received his BA degree from Princeton University, and his MS, PhD and MD degrees from New York University. Dr. Wolchok has received numerous honors for his work including: American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Memorial Award, the Giants of Cancer Care in Melanoma Award, the Berson Alumni Achievement Award in Clinical and Translational Science and the Zelmanovich Young Alumni Achievement Award from NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the Alfred Taubman Prize for Excellence in Translational Medical Research (Univ of Michigan) and has been designated a Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (FASCO). Most recently, he has been awarded the the Distinguished Alumni Award at MSK, the AACR-Joseph H. Burchenal Award for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Cancer Research, the ESMO Award for Immuno-Oncology and the David Karnofsky Award from ASCO. Dr. Wolchok has served on the Board of Directors of ASCO and the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) and currently is the Treasurer of SITC. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP) and is Chair of the Melanoma Committee for the ECOG-ACRIN NCI cooperative group. He is a full member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and center director for the Parker Institute of Cancer Immunotherapy.
Paul A. Bunn, MD
James Dudley Prof. of Lung Cancer Research at CU Medicine
Former President of ASCO
Dr Bunn is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine and James Dudley Chair in Cancer Research, Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and founding director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center. He has over 30 years of experience in oncology research, and his studies in lung cancer have been instrumental in the treatment of the disease, specifically in identifying biomarkers of prognosis and therapy selection. Throughout his career, Dr. Bunn has been President of ASCO, IASLC, and AACI, chairman of the FDA Oncology Drug Advisory Committee, and Executive Director of the IASLC. He is the author of numerous articles, book chapters, reviews, and editorials as well as Principal Investigator on numerous national and local therapeutic trials and for the prestigious SPORE grant in lung cancer.
Arul Chinnaiyan, MD, PhD
Prof. of Pathology and Urology at the UMich
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Arul M. Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D. is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, American Cancer Society Research Professor, and S.P. Hicks Endowed Professor of Pathology and Urology at the University of Michigan. He also serves as the inaugural Director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology (MCTP) which is comprised of a multi-disciplinary team of investigators focused on translating “-Omic” technologies to patient care in terms of biomarkers and novel therapeutics. He has co-authored over 350 manuscripts and has been designated an A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute Scholar and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences, the Association of American Physicians (AAP) and the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI). He serves on the Board of Scientific Advisors for the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Arul Chinnaiyan was elected as the member of National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in cancer research in 2020.
His group has characterized a number of important biomarkers of prostate cancer including AMACR, EZH2, the sarcosine metabolite, and most recently the long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) Schlap1. Dr. Chinnaiyan also led the development of the popular cancer profiling bioinformatics resource called Oncomine (www.oncomine.org(link is external)). Most recently, he has been involved in developing high-throughput clinical sequencing approaches for precision oncology (i.e., the MI-ONCOSEQ project). This has led to several discoveries including the pathognomomic gene fusion for solitary fibrous tumor (SFT), targetable FGFR kinase fusions across a diverse array of cancers, and mutations in ESR1 as a common resistance mechanism of endocrine therapy in breast cancer. More recently, a substantial portion of his lab is exploring RNA-seq methods to decipher the landscape of lncRNAs in cancer including in depth mechanistic and biomarker analyses of the lncRNAs Schalp1, PCAT1, PCAT29 and PCA3 among others.
Dr. Hagop M. Kantarjian
Prof. and Chair of the Dept of Leukemia, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Dr. Kantarjian is professor and chair of the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he is also the Samsung Distinguished Leukemia Chair in Cancer Medicine. He is also a non-resident fellow in health policy at the Rice University Baker Institute.
Dr. Kantarjian has received several prestigious honors and awards including the 37th Jeffrey A Gottlieb Memorial Award (2012), the John Mendelsohn Lifetime Scientific Achievement Award (2008), the Joseph H. Burchenal Memorial Award (2013), the Charles A. LeMaistre, M.D. Outstanding Achievement Award in Cancer (2014), and America’s Top Doctors, Castle Connolly Medical (2003-present). He was also selected as the top Castle Connolly National Physician of the Year Award for Lifetime Achievement (2014) and the ASCO David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award for lifelong contributions to leukemia research and patient care (2023).
Dr. Kantarjian’s research focuses on translational-clinical developmental therapeutics in leukemia. In the past four decades, he has made several contributions that improved prognosis and survival in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (tyrosine kinase inhibitors, e.g. imatinib, dasatinib, nilotinib, bosutinib which improved the 10-year survival from 20% to 90%), in acute lymphocytic leukemia (HPER-CVAD regimen and its derivatives which improved cure rates from 20% to 60+%), the discovery of decitabine for the treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome, and of clofarabine for the treatment of leukemias, among others. His research and collaborations were the basis for the FDA approvals of over 20 drugs in leukemia. He is an author of over 2,000 peer-reviewed publications.
Dr. Asher Channan Khan
Prof. of Medicine & Oncology at Mayo Clinic School of Medicine
Asher A. Chanan-Khan, M.D. is dedicated to advancing and discovering treatments for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia, and multiple myeloma. He works very closely with both his clinical and research staff to support and improve the quality of life of these patients.
For over a decade, Doctor Chanan-Khan has been engaged both in the development of novel therapeutics (the branch of medicine that deals with the treatment and cure of diseases) and extensive laboratory research. His expertise is in preclinical target validation and drug evaluation directed towards early phase clinical trials.
Doctor Chanan-Khan has actively contributed to the development of immunomodulating drugs (thalidomide and its analogs) in both CLL and multiple myeloma. In CLL, he is credited for introducing lenalidomide and defining its potential as a new therapeutic. In addition, he has been actively involved in the evaluation of other promising agents through phase I and II trials. In multiple myeloma, he has been involved in the development of various therapeutics (alone and in combinations) including proteasome inhibitors (bortezomib, carfilzomib) along with novel monoclonal antibodies. These efforts remain the focus of his continued research.
Doctor Chanan-Khan has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator on numerous clinical trials for patients with these disorders and has authored more than 200 publications related to CLL and multiple myeloma.
He serves in leadership roles on several Mayo Clinic, national and international committees relating to these diseases.