Hong Shen

Hong Shen is Senior Vice President at Roche and heads the China Innovation Center of Roche (CICoR) in Shanghai. He joined Roche's research centre in Shanghai in 2012 and has held roles there as head of medicinal chemistry, head of external innovation for therapeutic modalities and site head.

His career in drug discovery spans more than two decades at Merck and Roche, across nearly ten therapeutic areas. By 2026 his teams had taken 15 compounds into clinical development and 23 candidates into preclinical development, and he had about 130 publications and close to 140 patent filings to his name.

Shen holds a bachelor's degree from Peking University and a PhD in chemistry from Stanford University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, chairs the DIA China committee on drug discovery and translational medicine, and sits on the steering committees of the AACR Chemistry in Cancer Research working group and the Roche Accelerator. His awards include the Leo Sternbach Award and Roche pRED's Inventor's Recognition Gold Medal.