As CEO of Marengo Therapeutics and a director of the company’s board, Zhen Su brings nearly three decades of experience as a physician-scientist and biopharma executive, with expertise in building and leading both R&D and commercial organizations. During his tenure at Marengo, Zhen has led the team’s progressing the company’s lead asset into clinical trials, grown its leading-edge pipeline, and established a $2.8B strategic partnership with Ipsen. Zhen is also the Founding Chair for the Biotech Committee of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) and was recently appointed to the Board of Directors at Karyopharm Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: KPTI), CytomX Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CTMX) and Galvanize Therapeutics.

Prior to joining Marengo, Zhen served as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Oncology Business Francise for Merck KGaA, where he led the franchise’s turnaround to achieve double-digit organic growth and an annual revenue above $1B. In this role, he also successfully expanded the oncology portfolio including key alliance partnerships with Pfizer ($2.8B), GSK ($4.2B), and Debiopharm ($1.1B). In his earlier role as Chief Medical Officer of EMD Serono, he played an instrumental role in 8 major regulatory approvals across different therapeutic areas across Oncology and Neurology for Bavencio®, Tepmetko®, Erbitux®, and Mavenclad®. He also held leadership roles with increasing responsibilities at Sanofi Oncology for Taxotere® and Jevtana® and GlaxoSmithKline in Oncology, Respiratory and Urology.

Before his industry career, Zhen served on the faculty of Duke University Medical School as an Assistant Professor, where he led early clinical studies focusing on mRNA-based and cell-based immunotherapy in Oncology, and then the University of Florida, where he was the director of the Cell and Gene Therapy program. He is the author of more than 60 publications in immuno-oncology and targeted oncology.

Zhen earned his M.D. from the Technical University of Dresden, completed his post-doctoral training in Cancer Immunotherapy at Duke University Medical Center, and received an MBA from the University of Toronto.