CEO of China oncology start-up BeiGene toils to bring drugs to fruition
John Oyler says the primary goal is to get quick approval for the company’s pipeline of drugs to help patients fight a range of illnesses
Hard work has taken a toll on John Oyler, and that is ironic considering he is from the health care industry.
The 49-year-old American started BeiGene in 2010 in Beijing, an oncology drug maker with a market cap of about US$4 billion and now a Wall Street darling.
Its Nasdaq-listed shares have jumped more than 2.1 times this year, or 84.6 per cent since it unveiled a overseas licensing deal of cancer medicines developed in China in July. According to Bloomberg, the stock was among the top three Chinese American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) held by hedge funds as of October 12.
“Our CEO John was a young and handsome lad when I first met him,” Wang Xiaodong, co-founder and chairman of BeiGene’s scientific advisory board, said at an event to mark its partnership with Delaware-based biotechnology company Celgene in Beijing last month, drawing laughter from the audience.
The deal is the second endorsement the start-up has received from a global partner since Merck Serono, the biopharmaceutical division of Merck, in 2013.
“Our primary goal is to show that our drugs can help patients’ immune system fight a broad range of cancers and get the drugs approved quickly,” Oyler told the South China Morning Post.
