Welcome to the
2022 SAPA Scientific Symposium
in Virtual on May 21
The Sino-American Pharmaceutical Professionals Association (SAPA) will hold 2022 SAPA Scientific Symposium virtually on Saturday, May 21, 2022. The symposium will focus on the current trends in biomedical industries, and innovation and breakthroughs in the following areas: current advances in drug discovery, CMC challenges and solutions in the development of innovative modalities, design and data in drug development, and new movements in diagnostics. This event is cohosted by SAPA-HQ, SAPA-CT and SAPA-DC.
This year, many world-renowned scientists, entrepreneurs, as well as senior executives of leading pharmaceutical companies will gather in the scientific symposium to share their perspectives of the hottest topics and recent advancement in the field of biotechnologies and pharmaceutical science. You will have opportunities to learn the first-hand news of the breakthroughs in anti-cancer therapy (e.g., CAR-T towards a cure of multiple myeloma, immunotherapy combination therapies in solid tumor oncology, RNA nanoparticles for cancer drug delivery and PROTAC technology); discover how artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning are going to change the way we move forward in drug discovery and development; and dive deep into the diagnostic application of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS). Coming out of the symposium, you’ll likely gain more understanding of the current landscape of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry.
In addition, a job fair will be hosted at the end of the day for job-seekers. Companies including Accurant Biotech, Ascendia (Formulation Scientist/Analytical R&D Scientist/Microbiologis), GemPharmaTech, and Aleon (Project Manager, Regulatory Operations Project Management, Regulatory Affairs – Preclinical), will attend the virtual job fair. You are also welcome to attend an in-person gathering and networking event on May 22 to make more connections and establish personal relationships with other attendees! The offline networking event is free for scientific syposium participitants. The space is limited for this special after-conference networking opportunity on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Registration
PLEASE READ:
- Please contact us at event@sapaweb.org if you have any membership or registration-related questions.
- Active members, and lifetime members please log in first to enjoy the FREE admission.
- We encourage you to join SAPA as a member first and immediately enjoy the FREE registration and member benefits for a whole year, including discounts to attend other SAPA events.
- To enjoy the student discount, please register using your “.edu” school email.
Program at a Glance
Opening Remarks
Plenary Session



Sen Zhuang, MD, PhD | Jonathan Cheng, MD | Peixuan Guo, PhD |
Vice President, Janssen R&D | Senior Vice President, Bristol Myers Squibb | Professor, The Ohio State University |
9:40 am - 10:20 am | 10:20 am - 11:00 am | 11:20 am - 12:00 am |
Working Toward a Cure of Multiple Myeloma: A Drug Developer’s Perspectives | The Evolving Landscape of Immunotherapy Combinations in Oncology | The dynamic, motile and deformative properties of RNA nanoparticles lead to efficient tumor vasculature targeting, fast renal excretion and rapid body clearance |
Parallel Sessions
Parallel Session 1: Current advances in drug discovery




Songnian Lin, PhD | Daohong Zhou, PhD | Le Wang, PhD | Alan Cheng, PhD |
Director, Merck | Professor, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio | Principal Research Scientist II, Abbvie | Director, Merck |
1:05 pm - 1:45 pm | 1:45 pm - 2:25 pm | 2:35 pm - 3:15 pm | 3:15 pm - 3:55 pm |
Novel dimeric insulin: discovery of insulin receptor partial agonists: MK-5160 MK-1092 | Bcl-xl PROTAC – A safer and more effective antitumor agent | Discovery of ABBV-744, a first-in-class highly BDII selective BET bromodomain inhibitor | Deep learning applications in drug discovery |
Parallel Session 2: CMC challenges and solutions in the development of innovative modalities





Xuankuo Xu, PhD | Shanming Kuang, PhD | Tong-yuan Yang, PhD | Jim Huang, PhD | Xiaoling Li, PhD |
Director, Bristol Myers Squibb | Senior Director, J-Star Research/Porton Pharma Solutions | Senior Scientific Director, Janssen R&D | Founder/CEO and Board of Directors, Chair, Ascendia Pharmaceuticals | Professor, University of the Pacific; Cofounder & CSO, Triastek |
1:05 pm - 1:40 pm | 1:40 pm - 2:15 pm | 2:25 pm - 3:00 pm | 3:00 pm - 3:35 pm | 3:35 pm - 4:10 pm |
Next generation manufacturing at BMS: adopting a hybrid model for continuous processing | Crystallization process development of small molecule drug candidates utilizing solid state knowledge | Challenges and considerations in immunogenicity assessment of cell and gene therapies | Nanotechnology platforms for use in drug discovery and development | Melt extrusion deposition (MED ®) 3D printing for drug delivery, product development and manufacturing |
Parallel Session 3: Design, data and digital in drug development





Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD | Shubing Wang, PhD | Jinbo Lee, PhD | Jorg Wegner, PhD | Aaron Abend, MBA |
Founder and CEO, Insilico Medicine | Senior Principal Scientist, Merck | CEO, Scilligence | Associate Scientific Director, Janssen R&D | Executive Director, Autoimmune Registry |
1:05 pm - 1:40 pm | 1:40 pm - 2:15 pm | 2:25 pm - 3:00 pm | 3:00 pm - 3:35 pm | 3:35 pm - 4:10 pm |
End-to-end AI powered drug discovery - why do we need cross-border cooperation to invent better drugs faster? | A unified framework of deep computer vision | Informatics challenges and opportunities associated with the diversity of drug substances | Opportunities and challenges on “which compounds to make?” and “how to make them?” A scalability perspective | Patients, physicians and the research enterprise |
Parallel Session 4: New movements in diagnostics





Yi-Wei Tang, MD, PhD | Kui Shen, PhD | Andy Wang, PhD | Dongfang Liu, PhD | Jiemin Yan, PhD |
Chief Medical Officer, Danaher Dx Platform China | Director, Bayer | Director, IVD Product, BGI Americas | Associate Professor, Rutgers University | GM&CEO, Suzhou Astra-biotech |
1:05 pm - 1:40 pm | 1:40 pm - 2:15 pm | 2:25 pm - 3:00 pm | 3:00 pm - 3:35 pm | 3:35 pm - 4:10 pm |
Laboratory diagnosis and monitoring of infectious diseases at point of care | Bayesian hierarchical models for estimating drug efficacy in companion diagnostic trials | The diagnostic application of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) in infectious disease | In vitro machine learning-based CAR-T immunological synapse quality measurements correlate with patient clinical outcomes | Single molecular immune solution enables Alzheimer Disease early screening and diagnosis |
Job Fair and Community Network
Participating companies: Accurant Biotech, Ascendia, GemPharmaTech, and Aleon.
Ascendia Pharmaceuticals open positions: Formulation Scientist/Analytical R&D Scientist/Microbiologist. contact info: HR@ascendiapharma.com.
Aleon open positions: Project Manager, Regulatory Operations Project Management/Project Manager, Regulatory Affairs – Preclinical. contact info: careers@aleonpharma.com.
In-Person Gathering Happy Hours
There will also be in-person gathering and networking events (free of charge) starting at 12:00 pm on May 22, 2022.
*SAPA-HQ meetup location:
Sakura (1345 US-1, North Brunswick Township, NJ 08902); limited to 70 people, thanks to Accurant Biotech Inc. for sponsoring this event.
*SAPA-DC meetup location:
East Dumpling House (12 N Washington St, Rockville, MD 20850).
The instructions for the registration of the in-person events are as follows:
Please check your Confirmation Page/Email after completing the registration for the symposium. The links for further registration of the in-person events are included in the Confirmation Page/Email. Click a link to complete the registration for the in-person event of your choice (As a friendly reminder, if the Confirmation Email is not in your inbox, please check your spam folder).
Participants who have registered for the symposium before May 14th will receive an email reminder and can register for the in-person events directly through the link in the email.
Please contact us at event@sapaweb.org if you have any registration-related questions.
*For everyone’s health and safety, if you are experiencing any COVID-19 symptoms or tested positive within 48 hours of the in personal event, please consider staying home for May 22nd. SAPA will hold more networking events in the future and welcome you to join us next time!
Looking forward to seeing you at the symposium and the in-person gathering event!
Sponsors Information
Thank you for supporting us.
SAPA would like to thank Accurant Biotech for kindly sponsoring the in-person gathering and networking event (May 22 2022 12:00 pm).
Accurant Biotech is a global CRO providing high quality regulated analytical services for clinical trials. With the focus on antibody drug, cell and gene therapeutics, we provide immune- and cell-based analysis for PK, anti-drug antibody, biomarker, receptor occupancy, cell phenotyping, tumor mutation burden, viral detection, etc. Accurant has 3 GLP labs in New Jersey and China. The detection platforms include chemiluminescence, fluorescence, luminescence, flow cytometry, PCR, immunohistochemistry. Accurant provides full cycle service, from central lab, sample analysis, and data management. Official website: www.accurantbiotech.com
Looking forward to seeing you at the event!