Management

Management

Dr. Joe Marasco, CEO		Joseph Marasco, Ph.D. - has joined Chiral Quest as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Marasco brings over twenty years of fine chemical and pharmaceutical business leadership to the company. His focus is the building of businesses in the pharmaceutical arena by marrying technologies to pertinent commercial needs. He was actively involved in the launch of several new therapeutics from major pharmaceutical companies, and has held senior management roles in Kaneka, Chirotech, and Dow Pharma and was recently a co-founder and president of a biopharmaceutical company. His Ph.D. is in organic chemistry from the University of Virginia, with his postdoctoral work in biochemistry performed at the Army Institute of Research at the Walter Reed Medical Center.
Dr. Xumu Zhang, Founder and CTO		Prof. Zhang received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1992 from Stanford University under the guidance of Professor James P. Collman. In 1994, he joined the department of chemistry at The Penn State University as an Assistant Professor of chemistry. he was promoted to an Associate Professor of chemistry in 1999 and Full Professor in 2003. In 2007, he took a leading organic professor position in Rutgers, the New Jersey State University so that he can significantly enhance his interactions with pharmaceutical companies ad his effort to build Chiral Quest. His research interests include the development of chiral phosphine ligands for asymmetric catalysis, the investigation of asymmetric hydrogenation and carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions, the synthesis of biologically active compounds, and the discovery of new synthetic methods. Professor Zhang is the first person from mainland China, who won the prestigious ACS Cope Scholar Award in 2002 for his invention of the toolbox of chiral ligands for his development of homogeneous catalysts that make it practical to synthesize many chiral molecules, especially those having biological significance. Professor Zhang has published over 140 papers and filed over 30 patents and is a leading chemist in the world on asymmetric hydrogenation reaction.
Dr. Jingyang Zhu Senior Vice President Technical Operations		Dr. Jingyang Zhu, > 20 years of Process R&D experience in all phases of drug development. Former manager of Process Development Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squib and Director of Process Development, Nektar Therapeutics.
Dr Ian Lennon Senior Vice President Global Business Development		Dr Ian Lennon brings >20 years experience in the pharmaceutical field, with previous positions with Merck, Parke-Davis and Chiroscience, and senior management positions with Chirotech, Dowpharma and Dr Reddy’s. He obtained his first degree from the University of St. Andrews in 1985 and a PhD from Imperial College, London in 1992, under the supervision of Professor Steven V. Ley, FRS.