About ID4.

Established in 2015

Holds many patents with a focus on sequestosome-1-/p62-targeted small molecules which have showed good therapeutic index for Multiple Myeloma treatment.  In preclinical studies, our drug molecule has shown high anti-MM efficacy, toxicology safety, no drug resistance, and a good PK bioavailability.

Our Goal

Our goal is to conduct FDA IND-enabling studies of sequestosome-1 target-specific small molecule drugs in belief that our Anti-MM drug will benefit MM patients with better results and fewer side effects.  Therefore we are seeking a strategic Pharma/Biotech partnership, investor, and venture capitalists;  We hope to bring our anti-MM drug to market where it will be accessible by patients in need worldwide.

Our Team

James J-H Lee, PhD (Drug Medicinal Chemist and Expert)
CEO/Principle Investigator (PI) of ID4Pharma

Dr Li serves as a CEO of ID4Pharma LLC. He has over 25 years of R&D pharmaceutical industry R&D working-experience and administration, including 3 years as a Research Fellow at Parke-Davis Pharmaceuticals company and 8 years as a Senior Scientist at Guilford Pharmaceutical Inc in the US.  He has over 100 research publications and also hold over 25 drug discovery patents. He was Founder and CEO/President of Suzhou Hejian Pharma, Suzhou, China. Hejian Pharma was successfully launched in 2004 with VC/Investment fund as well as government funds with focus on drug CRO and R&D as a business model.

Xiang-qun (Sean) Xie, MD,PhD, EMBA
Founder and Chair of the Board of ID4Pharma

Dr Xie is a Founder of ID4Pharm LLC. Xie is an expert in medicinal chemical biology and system pharmacology for drug design and discovery and lead an integrated laboratory of CompuGroup, BioGroup and ChemGroup with a long track record of over 150 publications and patents in medicinal and computational chemogenomics structure-based drug design and discovery. He is a Charter member of the Science Board to the US FDA. He is an Editorial Advisory Board member for AAPS Journal. He is a leading inventor who discovered first p62-ZZ inhibitor for multiple myeloma intervention and a correspondent of the recent publication: Leukemia 2016, Nature Comm 2017. CELL 2020, etc. Dr. Xie has a responsibility for technical aspects of this project and coordinates with FDA officer for preclinical data analysis and IND filing.

Huyi (John) Zhang, PhD
Development Expert
Dr John Zhang was a former Branch Chief at FDA/CDER Office of Pharmaceutical Quality, Office of Lifecycle Drug Products, Office of New Drug Products,  and has 6 years of regulatory review and research experience.  He was actively involved in implementing many regulatory initiatives, and participated and led in several working groups in developing, drafting and finalizing multiple guidance's for industry.  Before joining the Agency, he has over 9 years of experience in biotech companies and multinational pharmaceutical companies including Legacy Wyeth and Pfizer as Research Investigator/Principle Chemist/Section Manager, and acquired extensive experience in many CMC areas including drug discovery, process development, sustained release formulation, analytical development, quality control, technical transfer, manufacturing, supply chain, and outsourcing management.  John joined ID4pharma as a Development Expert and Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Coordinator. He oversees the early development phase of the research & development program including the IND-enabling studies and the IND filing. 

Chris L. Waller, PhD
Scientific Advisory, Former Merck Executive Director

Dr. Waller serves as member of Scientific Advisory Board. He was an Executive Director in the Merck Research Laboratories Division of Merck & Co. (MSD) where he leads the MRLIT Scientific Modeling Platforms and Applied Math and Modeling teams and is responsible for IT Account Management for the Center for Observational and Real-world Evidence. Dr. Waller has over 20 years of experience in life sciences and held a variety of positions in academic, government, biotech, and large pharmaceutical company sectors. Dr. Waller was a founding board member of the Pistoia Alliance. Dr. Waller received his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1992.

David Roodman, MD, PhD

Dr. Roodman is a known physician in Multiple Myeloma (MM) and bone diseases. He is Professor and Director of Division of Hematology Oncology, and Co-Leader of the Hematopoiesis, Hematological Malignancies and Immunology Research Program, Indiana University Simon Cancer Center. He is a Staff physician, Veterans Hospital Hematology-Oncology Section. He was Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Medicine, and Professor of Medicine, Hematology/Oncology. He was Director of the Multiple Myeloma Program, UPCI; and Director of the Center for Bone Biology at UPMC, where the Dr Xie and Dr. Roodman have established close collaboration on Multiple Myeloma research and
published joint publication (Nature Leukemia PMID:2628611). He is one the American Board of Internal Medicine – Hematology American Board of Internal Medicine - Internal Medicine.

Ying Mu, PhD, D.A.B.T
Toxicologist and Pharmacologist, Formerly Food and Drug Administration officer

Dr Ying Mu is the board certified toxicologist (D.A.B.T.) focusing on the evaluation of toxicological adverse events and biocompatibility of regulated products; conducting innovative research such as biomarker discovery and development through collaboration, specifically for allergic risks assessment comprised of two-arm approaches, in vitro and in silico, and that of clinical monitoring for applications in both premarket and post market; the effort is also intended to overcome the limitations of animal based tests toward the improvement of regulatory and clinical decision-making. As an effective Biocompatibility Standard Working Group member, Dr Mu participated in regulatory standard/guidance development with a broad array of knowledge in toxicology, biocompatibility, biomarkers, immunology, biomaterials, orthopedics, stem cell, tissue engineering, molecular biology, pre-market risk assessment and post-market safety evaluation, regulatory review process and the politics.

Jing-Zhou Hou MD, PhD
Medical Advisor

Dr Hou is a medical oncologist and hematologist and co-chair of the hematological malignancies program at UPMC Cancer Center. Dr. Hou is board-certified in hematology and internal medicine. He completed a Medical Degree at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and received a PhD in Toxicology at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, Ark. Dr. Hou completed a residency in immunology and cancer biology at the National
Cancer Institute in Bethesda MD., and a fellowship in hematology and oncology at Stanford University in Stanford, CA. He is a member of professional organizations including the American Society of Hematology, American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplant. He also won a new investigator award through the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplant.
http://hillman.upmc.com/find/providers/jing_zhou-hou- 95136

Zhaojun (George) Xie
Out-reach & Operations

George graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a focus on Economics and Statistics with a Medical background.  During his biology research he has been published in many peer reviewed research papers including 2 patents and 6 publications.  He has done toxicology research at the FDA and pathology research at University of Pittsburgh.  He also focuses on asset portfolio management for various companies and clients.  He has launched and sold successful startup companies and continues to expand his portfolio by helping ID4 reach its goals and milestones.

Y.T Kwon, PhD.
Collaborator at National Seoul University

Dr Kwon is a Professor and Director of Protein Metabolism Medical Research Center at College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea. Dr Kwon has significant expertise and his team has recently published an article in Nat Cell Biol (17:917-29], which describes a key role of N-terminal arginylation of BiP in delivering misfolded proteins to autophagosomes via its association with the ZZ domain of p62.  Dr Kwon has an ongoing collaboration with the Dr. Xie and has performed the evaluation of Dr Xie’s p62 chemical probes for autophagy signaling studies, showing the lead compound strongly induces several features of autophagy in a dose- and time-dependent manner, including p62 self-oligomerization, recently reported to be the key step in targeting p62 to the autophagosome initiation site (J Cell Biol 192:17-27). 

L. Harris Zhang, PhD. EMBA
Scientific Advisor, Former Celgene Senior Scientist and Expert in Multiple Myeloma Biology

Dr Harris Zhang has over 20 years of biopharma industry and academic experience with a track record of patents and publications of biopharma innovation and cutting edge research in drug discovery and translational development.  He has done cancer immunology research as a CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellow at the MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and contributed the development of immunomodulatory anti-myeloma drugs such as Revlimid® and Pomalyst ® during his service at Celgene Corporation.  He has published 34 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 38 presentations for international conferences in the field of oncology, hematology and immunology, and coinvented over 10 USA and international patents. He is a Senior Scientist providing scientific advice for ID4Pharma in conducting in vitro and in vivo experiments to reach our goals and milestones towards FDA IND studies.

Richard (Rick) Bertz, PhD.
Scientific Consultant

Dr. Bertz has worked in pharmaceutical industry for 22+ years,  recently retiring as Vice President and Head, Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacometrics at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he was responsible for facilitating decision making and driving strategy, overseeing a group of PharmD, MS, MD and PhD scientists. He received a BS in Pharmacy from the University of Wisconsin, and earned his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh Clinical Pharmaceutical Scientist Program. During his career in pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Bertz has been involved in all phases of clinical drug development, with a focus on the analysis and interpretation of clinical pharmacology and pharmacometrics data. Dr. Bertz has been integrally involved in the completion of components of NDA submissions that haveled to worldwide regulatory approval for 3 NCAs. He has coauthored 70 peer-reviewed scientific publications and given numerous invited presentations. Dr. Bertz will serve as a Scientific Consultant by providing
his clinical pharmacology and drug development expertise to ID4Pharma.

---