Ji Zhang PhD

Dr. Ji Zhang has been Head of R&D Scientific Platforms at Sanofi since July 2011 and serves as its Head of Clinical Sciences & Operations. As head of R&D Operations, Dr. Zhang's teams integrate interdisciplinary scientific and clinical operations across the scientific platforms in preclinical, CMC development, and clinical development areas, to provide expertise and high caliber support to R&D projects, delivering new medicines with high quality, reduced cycle time and well-controlled cost at Sanofi. Before joining Sanofi in 2003 as Head of Biostatistics and Programming, Dr. Zhang was Senior Director of Clinical Biostatistics at Merck Research Laboratories and also served as its Vice President of International Clinical Operations since 2007. In his career, he has made significant contributions to the development and successful marketing of medicines in the respiratory, diabetes, cardiovascular, and oncology therapeutic areas. He has been a Trustee of BioNJ Inc. since May 12, 2016. Dr. Zhang has been extensively published in clinical development research areas. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in Mathematics, Probability, and Statistics from Beijing University, China. He also earned a Ph.D. in Statistics from North Carolina State University, USA.

Ji Zhang is a senior partner and senior vice president, of Enterprise R&D, and Operations at Flagship Pioneering. In this role, Ji is responsible for Flagship Labs operations, and works in collaboration with Flagship’s origination teams to drive R&D processes and operational excellence across Flagship Labs; as a member of Flagship’s senior leadership team, Ji provides expertise, support, and thought leadership to Pioneering Medicines and Flagship ecosystem companies.

Ji joins the firm from Sanofi where he was most recently senior vice president and global head of R&D Operations, where he led large, diverse, interdisciplinary teams of scientific and operations staff in 30+ countries delivering many new medicines with reduced cycle time, strong quality, and financial management while leveraging flexible business models. Ji also developed Sanofi’s integrated R&D digital strategy and implementation. Prior to joining Sanofi, Ji was senior director of Clinical Biostatistics at Merck Research Laboratories. Over his 30-year biopharmaceutical career, he has made significant contributions to the development and successful marketing of medicines in the respiratory, diabetes, cardiovascular, immunology, rare diseases, and oncology therapeutic areas.

Ji is a well-recognized talent-development leader in a global multi-cultural environment with particular attention paid to diversity and inclusion. He has a passion for supporting public education and medical research activities, and has served and continues to serve on the boards of several not-for-profit organizations.