Yi Liu, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Yi Liu, Ph.D. is a serial entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience in developing innovative small molecule medicines. He co-founded Kumquat Biosciences and has served as the Chief Executive Officer since its inception in November 2018. Previously, Dr. Liu served as the Chief Scientific Officer of Wellspring Biosciences Inc., an innovative biotech company he co-founded in July 2012 that pioneered the discovery and development of small molecules directed to once-known as undruggable KRAS oncoprotein. Dr. Liu also co-founded Kura Oncology in August 2014 and served as the Chief Scientific Advisor from its inception to public offering in NASDAQ. Prior to Wellspring, Dr. Liu co-founded Intellikine, Inc. in 2007, a private biopharmaceutical company, where he served as the Vice President of Drug Discovery until its acquisition by Takeda Pharmaceuticals in 2012. Prior to Intellikine, Dr. Liu was the head of the drug design group at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation. Earlier in his career, he held senior scientist positions at both SGX Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Curagen Corporation. He is a co-inventor of more than 100 patents and patent applications, and also a co-author of more than 50 scientific publications. Dr. Liu received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Princeton University, his M.Sc. in computational chemistry from Beijing University and his B.E. in Chemical Engineering from Tsinghua University.