Forward Pharma

Chief Scientific Advisor


Dr. John Talley, the Chief Scientific Advisor for Forward, is one of the world's most successful medicinal chemists, bringing over 30 years of industry experience to the R&D team. He is the inventor of Celebrax (celecoxib), Pfizer's blockbuster product-COX-2 inhibitor, which has generated cumulative sales of over $50 billion for Pfizer. Other drugs including Dynastat (parecoxib) and Bextra were also subsequently invented by him. In addition, Dr. Talley has led the development of the HIV protease inhibitors Agenerase, Lexiva and Prezista. During his career, Dr. John Talley has invented 8 new drugs that have been marketed worldwide, and has several subsequent drugs still in development. Dr. Talley served as the Senior Vice President (SVP) of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals and held key positions at G. D. Searle and Pharmacia. He holds over 215 U.S. granted patents, has published over 50 influential academic dissertations, and was awarded the Excellence in Invention Award by the American Society for Drug Development and Manufacturing in 2002.

Chief Executive Officer


Dr. Xu Liangliang received his undergraduate and doctoral degrees from the Department of Biological Sciences and Technology and the School of Medicine of Tsinghua University (2000-2012), and worked at the Institute of Biomedicine and Health of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from 2012-2013. He returned to China in 2014 to start his own business. Founded in 2015, Forward Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd has independently developed several new drug products including "the fourth generation of non-small cell lung cancer targeted drug", and has completed three rounds of marketize equity financing, raising nearly RMB 100 million. Dr. Xu Liangliang has applied for 12 patents for drug inventions (3 of them have been granted). He has been awarded with personal honors and government projects such as Pearl River Talents(Entrepreneurial leader) of Guangdong Province, Shenzhen Overseas High-Level Talents (Class B), Nanshan District Navigator Talents, Second Prize of Shenzhen Entrepreneurship Support Program for Overseas Students, and "Navigator Plan" High-Level Talents Entrepreneurship Support Program. He is also the Executive Director of the Anti-tumor Innovative Drug Development Center of Tsinghua University Research Institute in Shenzhen, the Director of Guangdong Small Molecule New Drug Innovation Center and the Director of Shenzhen Life Science and Biotechnology Association. Dr. Xu Liangliang  is a self-employed entrepreneur with a scientific background, who has achieved results in two distinct fields: basic research and industrial transformation.

Chief Scientific Officer


Dr. Zhu Chenggang received his undergraduate degree from Tsinghua University and his PhD from the University of California, Irvine School of Pharmacy. He has more than 10 years of industrial experience in the biopharmaceutical R&D industry. He has held key innovative drug discovery positions at Novartis and AstraZeneca, where he led several preclinical small molecule and biomolecule drug discovery projects and successfully advanced to clinical trials. He also holds more than 20 invention patents and has published more than 10 academic dissertations. He is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO); he is a member of the Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology (CSCO).