Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2017: Judith Li

The investment stars have often been those who understand how to unlock value from combining ideas and syndicates across borders and industries.

Judith Li, a partner at Lilly Asia Ventures, a regional corporate venture capital unit set up in 2008 by a pharmaceutical company in the region and now with three funds sponsored by US-listed drugs group Eli Lilly, has already shown how this can work.

She said for her GCV Rising Stars 2016 award: “In Fund III, we are pioneering a few innovative cross-border deal structures that can help leverage each geography’s unique strengths.

“Using these structures, we will be able to bring in some truly cutting-edge technologies into the China market – something that has never happened before. Several of our investments have already increased significantly in value, indicating the potential that can be unlocked.

“I think there could be an era of better cross-industry collaboration coming. Healthcare has always been overly siloed and strong syndicates of CVC could help bridge leading corporations across different sub-industries. Particularly in Asia, having an investment from and being affiliated with a strong multinational brand is attractive to young companies. Our Lilly connection is a powerful platform in securing deals and providing post-investment value-add.”

Deals over the past few years indicates this thesis. Last year’s deals included three in the US:

•  Maryland, US-based Nextcure, which focuses on the development of next-generation immune-oncology therapeutics using a proprietary platform developed at professor Lieping Chen’s laboratory at Yale University.

•  TMunity, which spun out from University of Pennsylvania last January to focus on the immunological potential of T cells to treat a wide range of diseases.

•  Fortis, a California-based early-stage biotech whose lead asset is an antibody-drug conjugate for the treatment of prostate cancer and multiple myeloma and raised $18m in September.

Building on this theme, her colleague, managing partner Fei Chen, also last year led a $20m series A round for Singlera Genomics, a US-based developer of genetic testing technology.

Li also sits on the board of US-based Just Biotherapeutics, which added $14m to its A round in July, and Veritas Genetics, which raised $30m in October having scanned a whole genome for less than $1,000.

In Asia, Li sits on the boards for Taiwan-based CVie Therapeutics, a subsidiary of Lee’s Pharmaceutical, and US and China-based Crown Bioscience.

Naturally, it is hard work to manage the distances involved. Li said her challenge was “staying afloat among three time zones, and fighting the perpetual jet lag” and, with her husband Ben, splitting her time between Hong Kong, Shanghai, and the Bay Area.

Travel had been less intensive at her former role for two years at Boston-based Partners Healthcare, which followed her BA in neurobiology from Harvard University and MBA at the business school there and then work at management consultant McKinsey.

Darren Carroll, now senior vice-president of corporate business development at Eli Lilly who had originally started the global corporate venturing programme back in 2005 and earlier developed the open innovation market in physical sciences through spinning out InnoCentive, had recommended them both for the Rising Stars 2016 award. He said: “They [Li and Chen, who report to Yi Shi, founding partner of Lilly Asia Ventures] have been very active and I expect them to remain so.”

Li concurred. She said her ambition was: “To continue building solid companies in healthcare, which by its nature will always be a pillar industry in any economy. Particularly in China, there are still so many white spaces where good global products are not widely available.”