In Vivo Neuroregeneration
Leading A Revolution in Brain Repair

About Us

NeuExcell is an early stage gene therapy company focusing on neurodegenerative diseases. We have developed a disruptive neural repair technology through astrocyte-to-neuron conversion. Our vision is to improve the quality of life of millions of patients worldwide who are suffering from neurodegenerative conditions by using the power of gene therapy to restore damaged neural tissue.

A Breakthrough in Brain Repair - In Vivo Regeneration

Despite great investment and hope in the past decades, there is no effective therapy that can cure ALS or reverse the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Likewise, therapies that treat stroke or brain/spinal cord injury have limited and variable efficacy at the best. The fundamental problem that has not been adequately addressed is how to recover a sufficient number of lost neurons to restore lost brain functions.

In neurodegenerative or acutely injured brains, neurons die while glial cells, a group of supporting cells surrounding neurons, become reactive and proliferate. Our in vivo transdifferentiation technology takes the advantage of those reactive and proliferative  glial cells and converts them into functional neurons with high efficiency. The newly generated neurons are fully functional and integrate into existing brain circuits, leading to functional recovery. This technology has a broad scope of applications to treat neurodegenerative diseases and neural injuries.

Our Team

Peter joined company as Executive Board Chair and Acting CEO in August 2019. 

Peter Tombros

Executive Board Chair, Acting CEO

Gong is the key founder of NeuExcell and serves as Chief Scientific Officer and Board Director. Gong is a Willaman Chair Professor at Penn State University. He pioneered the in situ cell conversion technology for brain and spinal cord repair. This groundbreaking technology can be applied to a wide range of neurological disorders, including stroke, Alzheimer’s , Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and ALS. Gong has published many high-impact papers in the neuroscience field. Gong was honored with Zenith Fellow Award by Alzheimer’s Foundation for his breakthrough work. Gong and his team have filed and obtained a series of patent applications. Gong received his BS at Fudan University and PhD at Shanghai Institute of Physiology.

Gong Chen, PhD

Founder, Chief Scientific Officer

Xi joined NeuExcell in April 2019 as its CFO. He also serves as Board Director of the company since August 2019. Prior to joining NeuExcell, as COO and CFO at GENEWIZ (a global leader in genomics services), Xi led the business growth from $9M, 50 employees in US only in 2009 to over $120M, 1200 employees in US/China/Europe/Japan, resulting in a strategic sale for $450M in 2018.  Xi also has 10 years’ corporate finance and operational experiences at Northwest Airlines and Eli Lilly.  Xi has an MBA from Duke, M.S. in Immunology from Harvard, and B.S. in Biochemistry from Peking University.

Xi Qin, MBA

Chief Financial Officer

Dr. Lorijn joined the company as Board Director in August 2019. He is an adviser or Director of Board of several European biotech companies.  Previously, Dr. Lorijn was CEO of AMT NV (currently uniQure NV) that he guided through an IPO on the NYSE Euronext in Amsterdam. The Company became the first in bringing a gene therapy to the market in the Western world.

Prior to AMT, Dr. Lorijn was VP at Amgen Europe responsible for its Clinical Operations, Business Development & Governmental Affairs. Before joining Amgen he was CMO and Sr Director of Clinical Operations & Medical Affairs, Europe at Centocor after having been employed by the pharmaceutical division of AKZO (Organon), as its head of worldwide Medical Services and Product Surveillance. Dr. Lorijn graduated from the Radboud University Nijmegen, completed a Ph.D. and MBA and was a certified obstetrician/gynecologist before joining the biotech industry.

Ronald HW Lorijn, MD PhD MBA

Executive Board Director

David serves as General Counsel and Secretary for the company. He is a GC at Ampersand Capital and ArQule (NASDAQ: ARQL), senior Counsel at American Red Cross and Kramer, Levin, Naftalis & Frankel. David received his J.D. & B.A. at Columbia and MA at Jewish Theological Seminary

J. David Jacobs, JD

General Counsel, Secretary

Jie is one of the co-founders and serves as Head of Discovery and Board Director of our company. Before NeuExcell, Jie was a researcher and lab manager at Penn State University. Prior to Penn State, she worked at a startup biotech company Xenoport Inc., where she was part of the team building the research laboratory as one of the first employees. Jie’s research experience covers molecular biology, immunology, virology, and neurodevelopment. Jie received her BS in biochemistry at Peking University and MS in cell biology at Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology.

Jie Xu

Head of Discovery

Beth Joins NeuExcell as the Chief Business Strategy Officer. Beth has over thirty years experience in biopharmaceutical industry. She was AVP at Wyeth/Pfizer where she led commercial development for rare disease and gene therapy business. Beth received her PhD at University of Rochester, and BS at Allegheny College.

Elizabeth White

Chief Business Strategy Officer