Wenkai Li

Co-Founder & CEO

NeuroVanda Therapeutics

Short Biography

Dr. Wenkai Li is the Co-Founder, CEO & CSO of NeuroVanda Therapeutics. Prior to his current role, Dr. Li was the External Innovation Head for APAC at Biogen from 2020 to 2023. The primary goal of his job was to create competitive advantage for the company by establishing Biogen as the partner of choice through interactions with biotechnology/pharmaceutical companies, academic labs, and venture groups. Before Biogen, Dr. Li was the CEO of Biopeutix since 2017. Dr. Li began his pharmaceutical career as a Senior Biologist at Merck Research Laboratories, and later became a Principal Scientist at GSK, leading multiple cutting-edge drug discovery programs. Dr. Li has extensive industry experience developing assets of multiple modalities including small molecules, biologics, nucleic acids, and gene therapies. He has advanced 8 NMEs into IND and various stages of clinical development. Dr. Li received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from The Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently on the Editorial Board of the Chinese Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders.