Xiayang Qiu
Chief Executive Officer, Regor Therapeutics Group
Wenge Zhong
Chief Technology Officer, Regor Therapeutics Group
Min Zhong
Chief Operating Officer, Regor Therapeutics Group
Xiaotian Zhu
President of U.S. Operations, Regor Therapeutics Group
(Photo above: Clockwise: Xiayang Qiu, Wenge Zhong, Xiaotian Zhu, and Min Zhong)
A Star-Powered Team
Xiayang Qiu, PhD and Wenge Zhong, PhD first proposed the name “Regor,” a quadruple star system (within the constellation Vela) whose combined magnitude renders it one of the brightest stars in the night sky. It is a fitting descriptor for the combined “star-power” of the four founders of Regor Therapeutics Group.
Industry veterans hailing from Amgen, Pfizer, GSK, Takeda, Ariad and other biopharmas, Dr. Qiu, Dr. Zhong, Min Zhong, PhD, MBA, and Xiaotian Zhu, PhD, each brought decades of experience and achievements within drug discovery and drug development. And although each had already enjoyed a long and successful career in pharma, they all shared the sense that they had more to do.
Founded in July 2018 and established with initial Series A investment, Regor rapidly assembled a world-class line-up of scientists and set out to discover and develop innovative and clinically differentiated medicines. Leveraging the proprietary Computer Accelerated Rational Discovery (CARD) Platform, their lead compound for metabolic disorders, RGT-075, was soon identified by Dr. Zhong. A novel small molecule oral GLP-1 receptor agonist with the potential to be a breakthrough for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus or obesity, a first-in-human clinical trial was initiated with RGT-075 in September 2020.
In February 2021, a $90 million Series B financing round led by Lilly Asia Ventures was completed and by December Regor had signed a multi-year research collaboration and licensing agreement worth up to $1.5 billion with Eli Lilly. Now, with promising early data from a Phase 1 study of RGT-075 in type 2 diabetes mellitus, Regor is set to enroll the first patient in a Phase 2 clinical trial this spring, less than four years after the company’s inception.
With the aspiration to build a team of “Stars of Hope for Patients” in need, Regor has grown from four friends in a small library room in Boston to over 100 employees today. And the future outlook is bright having already created a rich, diverse pipeline that includes a new generation breast cancer therapy beginning Phase 1 trials this year.
