Hongtao Yu, Ph.D. co-founded Westlake Pharmaceuticals in 2020 and serves as its Chairman.

Dr. Yu is a world-renowned cell biologist. Now he serves as the Dean of Westlake University’s School of Life Sciences and the Director of Westlake Laboratory of Life Sciences and Biomedicine (WLLSB).

He is a recipient of the Chang Jiang Scholars Program Chair Professorship，and was selected for the Zhejiang Province Kunpeng Plan, and the New Cornerstone Investigator Program.

Dr. Yu received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Peking University and received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University. Dr. Yu began his independent research career in Department of Pharmacology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure and then to Professor. He was the holder of the Serena S. Simmons Distinguished Chair in Cancer Immunopharmacology. And he also served as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator.

He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2012 and Board Member of Chinese Biological Investigator Society (CBIS) in 2018.