Board of Directors

Henry Ji brings 25+ years of experience in the biotechnology and life sciences industry. Dr. Ji is currently serving as Executive Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Scilex Holding Company . Dr. Ji has been Chairman of Scilex from March 2019 to present and served as the CEO of Scilex Pharmaceuticals from November 2016 to March 2019. 

Dr. Ji co-founded Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. and has served as a director since 2006, as its CEO and President since September 2012, and as Chairman of its board of directors since 2017. Dr. Ji also founded Vivasor Inc. and has served as CEO and President, and as Chairman of its board of directors since 2024.

During his tenure at Sorrento, he has engineered and led a phenomenal growth of Sorrento through acquisition and mergers including Bioserv, Scilex Pharmaceuticals, Concortis Biotherapeutics, Levena Biopharma, LACEL, TNK Therapeutics, Virttu Biologics, Ark Animal Health and Sofusa Lymphatic Delivery Systems. Dr. Ji has served as Sorrento’s Chief Scientific Officer from November 2008 to September 2012 and as its Interim CEO from April 2011 to September 2012.

Prior to Sorrento, he held senior executive positions at CombiMatrix, Stratagene, co-founded Stratagene Genomics, a subsidiary of Stratagene, and served as its President CEO and a member of the board of directors. Henry Ji received a doctorate from the University of Minnesota and an undergraduate degree from Fudan University.

Jaisim Shah has over 30 years industry success in leading product development & commercializing innovative therapies and creating companies with documented success in development and commercialization of some of today’s most recognized pharmaceutical brands. He is a seasoned life science executive and board director with extensive accomplishments at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, PDL Biopharma, Sorrento, Pfizer/Upjohn, Scilex, and start-ups Elevation and Semnur Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Shah has been CEO and President of Semnur Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Scilex Holding) since its inception in 2013. He has served as CEO and President of Scilex Holding from 2019 to 2025; and Scilex Pharmaceuticals since March 2019 and also serves on the board of directors of Scilex Holding and Semnur Pharma. Most recently, Mr. Shah served as Chief Business Officer of Elevation Pharmaceuticals where he focused on financing, mergers and acquisitions, and business development. He led the sale of Elevation to Sunovion Pharmaceuticals in 2012. At Facet Biotech and PDL BioPharma, he served from 2000 to 2009 as Chief Business Officer and also held the position of senior vice president of marketing and medical affairs. During this time, he completed numerous licensing/partnering and strategic transactions including with Roche, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Otsuka, and Biogen Idec. His leadership in marketing and leading the commercial enterprise helped the company make large improvements to meet its profitability potential. At Bristol-Myers Squibb, as vice president of global marketing from 1997 to 2000, Mr. Shah received the “Presidents Award” for completing one of the most significant collaborations in the company’s history. Prior to working with Bristol-Myers Squibb, Mr. Shah led international marketing for oncology and virology and was global business leader for corporate alliances at Roche from 1991 to 1997 with Genentech and IDEC, and prepared products for worldwide launch and pre-launch at F. Hoffman-La Roche AG in Switzerland. He has played a key role in the formulation of long-range plans and pre-launch and launch strategies for such brands as Abilify®, Pegasys®, and Rituxan/MabThera®, each of which have generated well over $1 billion in sales. Mr. Shah holds a M.A. in Economics from the University of Akron and a M.B.A. from University of Oklahoma.

Dorman Followwill was Senior Partner of Transformational Health at Frost & Sullivan, a business consulting firm involved in market research and analysis, growth strategy consulting and corporate training across multiple industries from 2016 to September 2020. Prior to that time, he served in various roles at Frost & Sullivan, including Partner on the Executive Committee managing the P&L of the business in Europe, Israel and Africa, and Partner overseeing the Healthcare and Life Sciences business in North America, since initially joining Frost & Sullivan to help found the Consulting practice in January 1988. Mr. Followwill has more than 30 years of organizational leadership and management consulting experience, having worked on hundreds of consulting projects in 38 countries, encompassing all major geographies, across all industry sectors whilst focusing on Healthcare and Life Sciences. He has performed strategic analyses related to the imperative of growth for clients such as Bayer, Novartis, Merck, GE Healthcare, Siemens, Philips, IBM and HP, Inc., and has assisted Fidelity in making Healthcare investments off its balance sheet. His professional opinion and industry insight has been sought by key media outlets including U.S. News and World Report, the BBC, Pharma Times, and CNBC in London. He obtained his B.A. from Stanford University in The Management of Organizations in 1985.

Yue Alexander Wu is co-founder and CEO of Cothera Bioscience, Inc., a translation medicine and precision therapeutics company. He was previously President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Strategy Officer of Crown Bioscience International, a leading global drug discovery and development solutions company, which he co-founded in 2006, until 2017. From 2004 to 2006, Dr. Wu was Chief Business Officer of Starvax International Inc. in Beijing, China, a biotechnology company focusing on oncology and infectious diseases. From 2001 to 2004, Dr. Wu was a banker with Burrill & Company where he was head of Asian Activities. Dr. Wu has served as a director of CASI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: CASI) since June 2013 and Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. since August 2016. Dr. Wu received his Ph.D. in Molecular Cell Biology and his MBA from University of California at Berkeley. He earned an M.S. in Biochemistry from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and his B.S. in Biochemistry from Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

Jay Chun, M.D., Ph.D., has served as the Chief of Neurosurgery and Director of the Atlantic Health Spine Center at Overlook Medical Center at Atlantic Health System since September 2015. Dr. Chun has served as a member of the Company’s Scientific Advisory Board since August 2021 and previously served as a member of Celularity, Inc.’s (Nasdaq: CELU) Scientific Advisory Board from September 2020 to January 2023. Dr. Chun completed his M.D. and Ph.D. at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. His neurosurgical residency was completed at the University of California at San Francisco, followed by specialization in the discipline of complex and minimally invasive spine surgery at Emory in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Chun is board certified and specializes in complex and minimally invasive spine surgery as well as artificial discs. While a member of the Columbia University faculty from June 1995 to June 1997, Dr. Chun worked in the field of biotechnology. He has received many honors including Medical Research Fellowships from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), working with the late Nobel Laureate Marshall Nirenberg. He received his Ph.D. with Richard Axel, a recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize. In honor of his stem cell research, he received the NIH Individual National Research Service Award.

Dr. Navani has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Comprehensive Spine and Sports Center since 2008, a leader in interventional and multidisciplinary spine, musculoskeletal, and orthopedic care. Over the last decade, she has scaled her solo practice into a large multispecialty group with more than twenty service lines operating across multiple state-of-the-art centers in Northern and Southern California. In 2022, Dr. Navani sold the practice to a private equity group and now serves as the Chief Medical Officer of Boomerang Healthcare, which has nearly thirty locations in California. Since 2003, Dr. Navani has also served as an Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor in the Division of Pain at Stanford University School of Medicine. Additionally, she has been the Medical Director at Le Reve Regenerative Wellness, a center for cutting-edge regenerative and wellness solutions, for more than a decade. Dr. Navani completed her Anesthesiology residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and her Fellowship in Pain Medicine at the University of California, Davis. She is board-certified in Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine by the American Board of Anesthesiology, Interventional Pain by the American Board of Interventional Pain Physicians, and Regenerative Medicine by the American Board of Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Navani serves on the board of several professional organizations, including the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, The Ortho Biologic Institute Networks, and the Latin American Pain Society. She has extensive publications in multidisciplinary pain management and has authored several national guidelines, including those on opioids, interventional spine procedures, and biologics. Dr. Navani is a global authority on healthcare trends, including digital health, technology innovations, and applied biologics.