Bolin Geng

Dr. Geng is the Vice President and Head of Research (from May 2020). In this role, he leads the discovery to address the challenges facing the preclinical and clinical research and continues to be responsible for all chemistry related activities. He is also a member of Executive Team where he participates the management of all R&D, manufacturing, and company’s day-to-day operation.

Dr. Geng joined LEAF in June 2018 as Senior Director of Research before being promoted to Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry and Product Quality in September 2018.

Dr. Geng is a medicinal chemist with over twenty years of industrial experience in small-molecule drug discovery. During his career at both big pharma and biotech companies, he worked in multiple therapeutic areas while focusing on creating treatment or cure for cancer and infection diseases. He has a track record of line and project management, successful drug candidate deliveries, and scientific/technological innovations. He is an inventor of over 10 drug candidates including Ra Pharma’s oral small-molecule C5 inhibitor, Merrimack’s ATR and BCL-2/XL inhibitors, and two of AstraZeneca’s clinical candidates, AZD9742 (phase I) and SUL-DUR (Sulbactam-Durlobactam, AZD2514, ongoing phase III trials). He also made contributions to the development of Merrimack’s liposome anticancer drug ONIVYDE® and clinical candidate MM-310 (phase I).

Dr. Geng is a seasoned scientist with the technical expertise in the management of CRO and CMO. He brings to LEAF a wealth of scientific and industrial knowledge in small-molecule drug design, nanotherapeutics and intellectual property. He has authored over 20 chemistry publications and is inventor of over 100 granted patents or patent applications.

Prior to joining LEAF, he was Associate Director at Ra Pharma (Now UCB, 2016-2018), and Principal Scientist at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals (2013-2016), Principal Scientist at AstraZeneca (2002-2012) and Principal Investigator at ArQule (now Merck,1997-2002). Dr. Geng has also consulted for several pharmaceutical companies such as Celgene (now BMS) and Proteostasis in drug design & synthesis, CRO management, IP due diligence, etc.

A native of China, Dr. Geng received his BS & MS in Chemistry from Nankai University, China, and his PhD in Organic Chemistry from University of Montpellier, France.