ADARx Pharmaceuticals CEO Zhen Li found her way to biopharma through Merck, where she was inspired by the application of powerful science to human medicine.
Zhen Li’s path to biopharma started with insurgence. Her family of engineers wanted her to follow in their footsteps, but Li wanted something else.
“My parents highly encouraged me to go for engineering, and in the end, I decided to go for science,” Li told BioSpace in an interview. “I always felt that was my biggest rebellion.”
Li received her Ph.D. in chemistry and chemical biology from Harvard. She didn’t set out for a career in industry after that. At the time, she remembers pharmaceutical companies having a bad rap. But that changed as soon as she was recruited into Merck.
“When you are in grad school, you focus on solving a chemistry problem . . . so that’s intriguing, exciting, all of that. But when I got to Merck—wow,” Li said. Her chemistry expertise was combined with biology and pharmaceutical sciences to develop treatments for human disease. “That puts a purpose to the work we do.”
The experience sealed her fate as a biopharma leader. “If I still had doubt [about], have I made the right decision to join a pharmaceutical company versus pursuing an academic job? I think a few months into Merck, I was very sure that, yeah, this is where I belong,” Li said.
Now the CEO of ADARx Pharmaceuticals, Li is presiding over a well-funded biotech that just signed a major licensing deal with AbbVie. And at the end of the day, Li’s passion for science—and making new things—is what drives her.
But oddly enough, once the discoveries are made, Li finds her work looking a lot more like the engineering career she spurned long ago. She said her team then perfects the next generation technology until it’s as close to perfect as possible.
“Now more and more, I see my engineering heritage in me. Because to develop good [treatments], then you make it really, really well, right? That’s engineering.”
Homing In on RNA
At Merck, Li led a team developing siRNA technology for therapeutics. She then jumped to RNA interference biotech Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, rising to the senior VP level as head of discovery and non-clinical development.
When she was approached by investors interested in RNA editing, Li saw opportunity. She didn’t know much about RNA editing, only that the field was very early; but she agreed to explore it and, with her executive team, dove right in. It wasn’t long before she realized that what they were learning about RNA editing could be applied to siRNA. At Merck, they had called this “cross fertilization,” Li said.
After a year of work, she and her colleagues took the idea back to the investors and ADARx’s siRNA technology was born. The company made its public debut in fall 2022 with a $75 million series B.
ADARx has always been in touch with pharma companies, so the AbbVie deal did not come out of nowhere. But Li and crew were attracted to the AbbVie team because of their expertise in the central nervous system. AbbVie was interested in ADARx for its technology, not just as a one-off asset, Li said.
The bigger company also brought its antibody technology to the mix, which was a piece missing from ADARx. Li said they had been talking about how to add that capability to boost the siRNA technology, so the partnership was a perfect fit. Not to mention that AbbVie has the commercialization chops for when the assets in question get closer to market.
For its next partner, ADARx is looking for a company that can offer clinical development experience, patient access and commercialization. Li knows that ADARx on its own can’t build out a commercial infrastructure in so many disease areas.
ADARx is also forging full speed ahead on its remaining unpartnered pipeline, which Li said is deep. It includes lead asset ADX-324 for hereditary angioedema plus plenty more behind the curtain in early research, Li said. “We cannot possibly do all of them,” she admitted.
Making New Things
Being a scientific founder and CEO can be a tough gig, but Li takes it in stride. She said she has an incredibly supportive board and investor syndicate, and her earlier leadership positions at Merck and Arrowhead helped get her to where she is now. The CEO role, however—ADARx being her first—is entirely different.
Li leads with results, the science and the technology, taking a lesson from Merck’s legendary founder, George Merck, who famously said: “We try to remember that medicine is for the patient. We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear.”
This approach helped Li and her team raise one of the bigger financings of 2023, with $200 million collected in an oversubscribed series C. Li remembers having to turn down investors or pare down contributions to fit in more individuals. “We had $400 million in demand. We literally turned down $200 million,” Li said.
That raise has continued to carry ADARx to now, and with the AbbVie deal, the biotech has plenty of legroom to sit out and wait for the right moment to go public.
“The market’s just too choppy, and we have cash,” she said. “We are in control of the timing of our IPO.”
Focusing on the science for now suits Li just fine, with her chemistry education and engineering heritage continuing to serve her well. “I think science gives you the imagination.”
