CAROLINA TO CHINA.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: STATE WIDE: Triangle

It's a familiar problem: New advances in medicine and technology could save lives, but many people can't access or afford them, especially in countries such as China. A new $260 million startup jointly based in Durham and Shanghai aims to fix that, with a former GlaxoSmithKline exec at the helm.

Zhi Hong, president and co-founder of Brii Biosciences, says pharmaceutical and technological advances worldwide are picking up steam. "But the reach of those innovations in China has been limited," he says. Though a for-profit business, Brii will focus on public-health issues.

"We're targeting diseases that affect huge swaths of Chinese society," says Lisa Beck, vice president for business development. Brii will be "a bridge from the rest of the world into China" to accelerate access to innovation for patients, she says.

Hong, a biochemistry graduate of Fudan University in Shanghai with a doctorate from the State University of New York at Buffalo, most recently spent more than a decade as senior vice president and head of GSK's infectious-disease center in Durham. He is credited with helping develop drugs to treat human immunodeficiency virus and other transmittable diseases. He's spent more than a quarter of a century developing drugs for cancer and various illnesses at GSK and companies such as Schering-Plough, which was acquired by Merck in 2009. Beck is also a former longtime GSK executive, including having directed worldwide business development.

To attract more than a quarter of a billion dollars in venture capital from Arch Venture Partners, a Chicago-based firm that specializes in scientific investments, along with five other investors, Brii cobbled together a...