Cheni Kwok

Dr. Kwok is a senior biopharmaceutical executive with broad operational expertise who has executed over 150 transactions including M&A, strategic partnerships, licensing, divestitures, spin-offs and project financing. Since 2011, Dr. Kwok is the Managing Partner and Founder of Linear Dreams LLC, a management consultancy for the life sciences industry. The firm engages a broad range of business and corporate development activities for 49 biopharmaceutical companies, contract research & non-profit organizations, research institutes and investors in USA, Europe, China, Taiwan and Singapore.

As Senior Vice President, Corporate Development at Poniard Pharmaceuticals Inc., Dr. Kwok established corporate and business development, strategic and commercial planning, new product planning, competitive intelligence and forecasting functions. Previously, she was Director of Business Development at Celera Genomics Inc., where she led the business development efforts for Celera's small molecule therapeutics, including the divestiture of the oncology pipeline (including Imbruvica® (ibrutinib)) to Pharmacyclics Inc. (now an AbbVie Company). Dr. Kwok held business development positions of increasing responsibility at Exelixis Inc., where she initiated multiple partnerships and served as the alliance manager for the GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) collaboration. Prior to joining Exelixis Inc., she held various research management, technology assessment and alliance management roles at SmithKline Beecham PLC (now GSK).

Dr. Kwok received a bachelor's degree with first class honors in biotechnology from the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of London, UK, a Ph.D. in human molecular genetics from the University of Cambridge, UK and has earned the Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) credential. At present, Dr. Kwok is serving as the Board of Directors of Chinese-American Biopharmaceutical Society (CABS) and serves on the Standards, Admissions & Recertification committee of Certified Licensing Professionals, Inc.