Biotech Billionaire

Akeso CEO Michelle Xia gained experience in the US before launching her own biotech company back home in China. Now its cancer-fighting drug has put her in the spotlight of global pharmaceutical firms

- By KERRY A DOLAN

The tanker American Energy is 900 feet long with a black hull; its bridge reaches the height of a ten-story building. Jutting out of the top deck are the squared-off corners of the ship's enormous liquefied natural gas storage tanks—painted a turquoise that complements the waters of the port of Peñuelas, on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. There, in June, the ship—owned by Jacksonville, Florida-based shipping company Crowley Maritime—made its first delivery to the island of 35 million gallons (130,000 cubic metres) of super-chilled (to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit) liquid natural gas (LNG) sourced from American shale frackers. That's enough in one shipment to generate the electricity to power 80,000 homes for a year, says Tom Crowley Jr, the 58-year-old chairman and majority owner of Crowley Maritime.

Michelle Xia spent a dozen years in research and biotech in the US before relocating back to her native China for a job at American life sciences contract research company Crown Bioscience. It didn't take long for her to realise that patients in her home country needed to wait a much longer time than Americans to get the newest and best medicines. Back then, she says, it took eight to 10 years for drugs that had been approved in the US to become available in China.

"There was not much innovation in China" in drug development then. China was producing copies of US drugs, but with a big lag time. Armed with the ambition to change that and ample industry experience, she launched a biotech company in 2012 with two former Crown Bioscience colleagues and one other co-founder in the southern city of Zhongshan. She took the lead as CEO, chairwoman and president of the startup, which they named Akeso after a Greek goddess of healing.