Contest: 2nd contest 1000 Plan appraisal batch: Innovation category
Wang Yuqiang, founder of Guangzhou Magpie Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd: Wang received his Ph.D. from University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and later did postdoctoral research at Yale University and University of Alberta. In early 90s, he joined a biopharmaceutical company of Silicon Valley in California, USA to serve on the drug research and development. Wang returned to China in 2005 to act as professor and present of the School of Pharmacy, Jinan University. He is currently the director of the New Drug Research Institute of Jinan University and the doctoral supervisor. Professor Wang has been interested in the research of DNA-minor groove binding drug’s CC-1065 derivatives for many years and synthesized more than 100 CC-1065 derivatives. Among them, YW-053 is recognized as one of the few chemical compounds with the strongest anticancer activity and its anticancer activity in vitro is one million times stronger than that of adriamycin, a clinical antitumor drug. According to GMP, Professor Wang first synthesized memantine for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease in the United States. Following that, he, in collaboration with his team successfully developed memantine in the United States.