
Our Board
Alex Yang
Interim CEO and Chair of the Board
Alex Yang, J.D., L.L.M. is the original funder of Epygenix Therapeutics, Inc. and the CEO/owner of Mstone Partners, which serves as the major shareholder of Epygenix Therapeutics, Inc. Alex also serves as the CEO of Curyx Partners, a biotech incubation platform, which has set up a number of drug development companies in both pre-clinical and clinical stages.
Alex has over 25 years of experience in advising and executing fund formation, cross-border transactions, and a diverse pool of investment experiences in multiple industry sectors. He currently serves investment and risk committee member roles for various regional and country-focused private equity funds. Alex is formerly a managing partner at Kim & Chang and was a partner at the Ernst & Young Hong Kong office leading regional financial services practice, including banking and capital markets, asset management, and insurance.
Alex formerly worked at the Morgan Stanley Hong Kong Office in the capacity of its Asia Private Equity and In-house Counsel, focused on buy-outs and grow-capital investments, real estate, special situation, and infrastructure transactions across Asia. He also worked at Coopers & Lybrand and Ernst & Young New York offices in their international tax and consulting divisions.
Alex graduated from New York University School of Law with both J.D. and L.L.M. degrees and a bar with the State of New York and received an undergraduate degree from Binghamton University with Economics.
Hahn-Jun Lee, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Executive Director of the Board
Hahn-Jun Lee, M.Sc., Ph.D. is a serial entrepreneur who founded Epygenix Therapeutics, Inc. He also founded Polaryx Therapeutics, Inc., which develops patient-friendly medicines for lysosomal storage disorders and Focus Therapeutics, LLC, a business catalyst in the biotech-pharma industry. He also co-founded Curyx Partners, LLC, a drug development platform.
He has extensive experience in R&D, deal making, business development, and has consulted with several top-notch health care venture capital firms and global pharma and biotech companies, including Doman Associates, Shire Human Genetic Therapies, P&G Pharma, Melior Discovery, and CDI. He also consulted with several Korean biotechs, venture capital firms, and research institutes.
Dr. Lee was an Assistant Professor of Biotechnology in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University in the City of New York. He also worked as a Staff Scientist at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan.
He obtained a B.S. in Life Science from Sogang University, Seoul, Korea. He completed his M.S. and Ph.D. in applied biotechnology in the Department of Applied Biotechnology at the University of Tokyo, Japan.
Scott C. Baraban, Ph.D.
Director, Chair of Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Baraban’s pioneering research focuses on translational discoveries and includes work on models of pediatric epilepsy in zebrafish and interneuron-based cell therapies for epilepsy. The first zebrafish models for epilepsy were developed in his laboratory more than 20 years ago, and his group published the first high-throughput drug screenings using a zebrafish model for Dravet Syndrome. He has authored more than 120 publications, including papers in the Journal of Neuroscience, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Neuron, Nature Communications, Science, Brain, and Nature Neuroscience. He has received several research honors, including the Basil O’ Connor Scholar Research award, a Klingenstein Foundation Fellowship in Neuroscience, and an NIH EUREKA award. He received a Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the NIH in 2015 and the Basic Science Research award from the American Epilepsy Society in 2016.
Dr. Baraban received his Bachelor's degree from the Johns Hopkins University, his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, and completed his postdoctoral training at the University of Washington. He currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Dravet Syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome Foundations.
Michael Chin
Director of the Board
Michael Chin is a seasoned investment bank and asset management professional with over 30 years of experience. Michael is currently an Independent Director at Vingroup, JSC, Pepper Savings Bank, and SEO-Vietnam. He also serves as a senior advisor of Lumen Capital Investors developing its private equity/venture capital business.
Michael spent 22 years in various locations and functions in UBS AG, including CEO of Asset Management Singapore and UBS Hana Asset Management in Korea. Before joining UBS, Michael held a number of positions at Lehman Brothers, Schroders and Credit Suisse First Boston, and Kakao Bank. Michael graduated with a BA degree in International Relations from University of Virginia.
Andrew O
Head of Investor Relations
Andrew O has over twenty years of experience as an asset management and finance professional. Prior to serving as Head of Investor Relations, Andrew held multiple positions within traditional fund management as well fundamentally-driven hedge fund investing roles at institutions such as Manulife Investment Management, Horizon Asset International and FrontPoint Partners (Morgan Stanley). Andrew also worked at Goldman Sachs and the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private investment arm.
Andrew graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with BA degrees in American Civilization and English and undertook Master’s level studies at Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Studies.